John William Burgon

The instances which have been given in this chapter of the superiority of the text exhibited in the later Uncials and the Cursives might have been increased in number to almost any extent out of the papers left by Dean Burgon. The reader will find many more illustrations in the rest of these two volumes. Even Dr. Hort admits that the Traditional Text which is represented by them is “entirely blameless on either literary or religious grounds as regards vulgarized or unworthy diction371,” while “repeated and [pg 222] diligent study” can only lead, if conducted with deep and wide research, to the discovery of beauties and meanings which have lain unrevealed to the student before.

Let it be always borne in mind, that (a) the later Uncials and Cursives are the heirs in succession of numerous and varied lines of descent spread throughout the Church; that (b) their verdict is nearly always decisive and clear; and that nevertheless (c) such unanimity or majority of witnesses is not the testimony of mechanical or suborned testifiers, but is the coincidence, as facts unquestionably prove, except in certain instances of independent deponents to the same story.

Let me be allowed to declare372 in conclusion that no person is competent to pronounce concerning the merits or demerits of cursive copies of the Gospels, who has not himself, in the first instance, collated with great exactness at least a few of them. He will be materially assisted, if it has ever fallen in his way to familiarize himself however partially with the text of vast numbers. But nothing can supply the place of exact collation of at least a few copies: of which labour, if a man has had no experience at all, he must submit to be assured that he really has no right to express himself confidently in this subject-matter. He argues, not from facts, but from his own imagination of what the facts of the case will probably be. Those only who have minutely collated several copies, and examined with considerable attention a large proportion of all the Sacred Codexes extant, are entitled to speak with authority here. Further, I venture to assert that no conviction will force itself so irresistibly on the mind of him who submits to the labour of exactly collating a few Cursive copies of the Gospels, as that the documents in question have been executed with even extraordinary diligence, fidelity, and skill. That history confirms this conviction, we have only [pg 223] to survey the elaborate arrangements made in monasteries for carrying on the duty, and perfecting the art, of copying the Holy Scriptures.

If therefore this body of Manuscripts be thus declared by the excellence of its text, by the evident pains bestowed upon its production, as well as by the consentience with it of other evidence, to possess high characteristics; if it represents the matured settlement of many delicate and difficult questions by the Church which after centuries of vacillation more or less, and indeed less rather than more, was to last for a much larger number of centuries; must it not require great deference indeed from all students of the New Testament? Let it always be remembered, that no single Cursive is here selected from the rest or advanced to any position whatsoever which would invest its verdicts with any special authority. It is the main body of the Cursives, agreeing as they generally do with the exception of a few eccentric groups or individuals, which is entitled to such respect according to the measure of their agreement. And in point of fact, the Cursives which have been collated are so generally consentient, as to leave no doubt that the multitude which needs collation will agree similarly. Doubtless, the later Uncials and the Cursives are only a class of the general evidence which is now before us: but it is desirable that those Textual Students who have been disposed to undervalue this class should weigh with candour and fairness the arguments existing in favour of it, which we have attempted to exhibit in this chapter.

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The Traditional Text has now been traced, from the earliest years of Christianity of which any record of the New Testament remains, to the period when it was enshrined in a large number of carefully-written manuscripts in main accord with one another. Proof has been given from the writings of the early Fathers, that the idea that the Traditional Text arose in the middle of the fourth century is a mere hallucination, prompted by only a partial acquaintance with those writings. And witness to the existence and predominance of that form of Text has been found in the Peshitto Version and in the best of the Latin Versions, which themselves also have been followed back to the beginning of the second century or the end of the first. We have also discovered the truth, that the settlement of the Text, though mainly made in the fourth century, was not finally accomplished till the eighth century at the earliest; and that the later Uncials, not the oldest, together with the cursives express, not singly, not in small batches or companies, but in their main agreement, the decisions which had grown up in the Church. In so doing, attention has been paid to all the existing evidence: none has been omitted. Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus, has been the underlying principle. The foundations of the building have been laid as deeply and as broadly as our power would allow. No other course would be in consonance with scientific procedure. The [pg 225] seven notes of truth have been made as comprehensive as possible. Antiquity, number, variety, weight, continuity, context, and internal evidence, include all points of view and all methods of examination which are really sound. The characters of the Vatican, Sinaitic, and Bezan manuscripts have been shewn to be bad, and the streams which led to their production from Syrio-Old-Latin and Alexandrian sources to the temporary school of Caesarea have been traced and explained. It has been also shewn to be probable that corruption began and took root even before the Gospels were written. The general conclusion which has grown upon our minds has been that the affections of Christians have not been misdirected; that the strongest exercise of reason has proved their instincts to have been sound and true; that the Text which we have used and loved rests upon a vast and varied support; that the multiform record of Manuscripts, Versions, and Fathers, is found to defend by large majorities in almost all instances those precious words of Holy Writ, which have been called in question during the latter half of this century.

We submit that it cannot be denied that we have presented a strong case, and naturally we look to see what has been said against it, since except in some features it has been before the World and the Church for some years. We submit that it has not received due attention from opposing critics. If indeed the opinions of the other School had been preceded by, or grounded upon, a searching examination, such as we have made in the case of B and ?, of the vast mass of evidence upon which we rest,—if this great body of testimony had been proved to be bad from overbalancing testimony or otherwise,—we should have found reason for doubt, or even for a reversal of our decisions. But Lachmann, Tregelles, and Tischendorf laid down principles chiefly, if not exclusively, on the score [pg 226] of their intrinsic probability. Westcott and Hort built up their own theory upon reasoning internal to it, without clearing the ground first by any careful and detailed scrutiny. Besides which, all of them constructed their buildings before travellers by railways and steamships had placed within their reach the larger part of the materials which are now ready for use. We hear constantly the proclamation made in dogmatic tones that they are right: no proof adequate to the strength of our contention has been worked out to shew that we are wrong.

Nevertheless, it may be best to listen for a moment to such objections as have been advanced against conclusions like these, and which it may be presumed will be urged again.

1. “After all it cannot be denied that B and ? are the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament in existence, and that they must therefore be entitled to the deference due to their age.” Now the earlier part of this allegation is conceded by us entirely: prima facie it constitutes a very strong argument. But it is really found on examination to be superficial. Fathers and Versions are virtually older, and, as has been demonstrated, are dead against the claim set up on behalf of those ancient manuscripts, that they are the possessors of the true text of the Gospels. Besides which antiquity is not the sole note of truth any more than number is. So much has been already said on this part of the subject, that it is needless to enter into longer discussion here.

2. “The testimony of witnesses ought to be weighed before it is reckoned.” Doubtless: this also is a truism, and allowance has been made for it in the various “notes of truth.” But this argument, apparently so simple, is really intended to carry a huge assumption involved in an elaborate maintenance of the (supposed) excellent character of B and ? and their associates. After so much [pg 227] that has been brought to the charge of those two MSS. in this treatise, it is unnecessary now to urge more than that they appeared in strange times, when the Church was convulsed to her centre; that, as has been demonstrated, their peculiar readings were in a very decided minority in the period before them; and, as all admit, were rejected in the ages that passed after the time of their date.

3. It is stated that the Traditional is a conflate text, i.e. that passages have been put together from more than one other text, so that they are composite in construction instead of being simple. We have already treated this allegation, but we reply now that it has not been established: the opinion of Canon Cooke who analysed all the examples quoted by Hort373, of Scrivener who said they proved nothing374, and of many other critics and scholars has been against it. The converse position is maintained, that the text of B and ? is clipped and mutilated. Take the following passage, which is fairly typical of the large class in question: “For we are members of His Body” (writes St. Paul375) “of His flesh and of His bones” (?? t?? sa???? a?t?? ?a? ?? t?? ?st??? a?t??). But those last 9 words are disallowed by recent editors, because they are absent from B-?, A, 8, and 17, and the margin of 67, besides the Bohairic version. Yet are the words genuine. They are found in DFGKLP and the whole body of the cursives: in the Old Latin and Vulgate and the two Syriac versions: in Irenaeus376,—in Theodorus of Mopsuestia377,—in Nilus378,—in Chrysostom379 more than four times,—in Severianus380,—in Theodoret381,—in Anastasius Sinaita382,—and in John Damascene383. They were probably read by [pg 228] Origen384 and by Methodius385. Many Latin Fathers, viz. Ambrose386,—Pacian387,—Esaias abb.388,—Victorinus389,—Jerome390,—Augustine391—and Leo P.392 recognise them.

Such ample and such varied attestation is not to be set aside by the vapid and unsound dictum “Western and Syrian,”—or by the weak suggestion that the words in dispute are an unauthorized gloss, fabricated from the LXX version of Gen. ii. 23. That St. Paul's allusion is to the oracular utterance of our first father Adam, is true enough: but, as Alford after Bengel well points out, it is incredible that any forger can have been at work here.

Such questions however, as we must again and again insist, are not to be determined by internal considerations: no,—nor by dictation, nor by prejudice, nor by divination, nor by any subjective theory of conflation on which experts and critics may be hopelessly at issue: but by the weight of the definite evidence actually producible and [pg 229] produced on either side. And when, as in the present instance, Antiquity, Variety of testimony, Respectability of witnesses, and Number are overwhelmingly in favour of the Traditional Text, what else is it but an outrage on the laws of evidence to claim that the same little band of documents which have already come before us so often, and always been found in error, even though aided by speculative suppositions, shall be permitted to outweigh all other testimony?

To build therefore upon a conflate or composite character in a set of readings would be contrary to the evidence:—or at any rate, it would at the best be to lay foundations upon ground which is approved by one school of critics and disputed by the other in every case. The determination of the text of Holy Scripture has not been handed over to a mere conflict of opposite opinions, or to the uncertain sands of conjecture.

Besides, as has been already stated, no amount of conflation would supply passages which the destructive school would wholly leave out. It is impossible to “conflate” in places where B? and their associates furnish no materials for the supposed conflation. Bricks cannot be made without clay. The materials actually existing are those of the Traditional Text itself. But in fact these questions are not to be settled by the scholarly taste or opinions of either school, even of that which we advocate. They must rest upon the verdict found by the facts in evidence: and those facts have been already placed in array.

4. Again, stress is laid upon Genealogy. Indeed, as Dean Burgon himself goes on to say, so much has lately been written about “the principle” and “the method” “of genealogy,” that it becomes in a high degree desirable that we should ascertain precisely what those expressions lawfully mean. No fair controversialist would willingly fail to assign its legitimate place and value to any principle for [pg 230] which he observes an opponent eagerly contending. But here is a “principle” and here is a “method” which are declared to be of even paramount importance. “Documents ... are all fragments, usually casual and scattered fragments, of a genealogical tree of transmission, sometimes of vast extent and intricacy. The more exactly we are able to trace the chief ramifications of the tree, and to determine the places of the several documents among the branches, the more secure will be the foundations laid for a criticism capable of distinguishing the original text from its successive corruptions393.”

The expression is metaphorical; belonging of right to families of men, but transferred to Textual Science as indicative that similar phenomena attend families of manuscripts. Unfortunately the phenomena attending transmission,—of Natures on the one hand, of Texts on the other,—are essentially dissimilar. A diminutive couple may give birth to a race of giants. A genius has been known to beget a dunce. A brood of children exhibiting extraordinary diversities of character, aspect, ability, sometimes spring from the same pair. Nothing like this is possible in the case of honestly-made copies of MSS. The analogy breaks down therefore in respect of its most essential feature. And yet, there can be no objection to the use of the term “Genealogy” in connexion with manuscripts, provided always that nothing more is meant thereby than derivation by the process of copying: nothing else claimed but that “Identity of reading implies identity of origin394.”

Only in this limited way are we able to avail ourselves of the principle referred to. Of course if it were a well-ascertained fact concerning three copies (XYZ), that Z was copied from Y, and Y from X, XYZ might reasonably be spoken of as representing three descents in a pedigree; although the interval between Z and Y were only six [pg 231] months,—the interval between Y and X, six hundred years. Moreover, these would be not three independent authorities, but only one. Such a case, however,—(the fact cannot be too clearly apprehended),—is simply non-existent. What is known commonly lies on the surface:—viz. that occasionally between two or more copies there exists such an amount of peculiar textual affinity as to constrain us to adopt the supposition that they have been derived from a common original. These peculiarities of text, we tell ourselves, cannot be fortuitous. Taking our stand on the true principle that “identity of reading implies identity of origin,” we insist on reasoning from the known to the unknown: and (at our humble distance) we are fully as confident of our scientific fact as Adams and Le Verrier would have been of the existence of Neptune had they never actually obtained sight of that planet.

So far are we therefore from denying the value and importance of the principle under discussion that we are able to demonstrate its efficacy in the resolution of some textual problems which have been given in this work. Thus E, the uncial copy of St. Paul, is “nothing better,” says Scrivener, “than a transcript of the Cod. Claromontanus” D. “The Greek is manifestly worthless, and should long since have been removed from the list of authorities395.” Tischendorf nevertheless, not Tregelles, quotes it on every page. He has no business to do so, Codexes D and E, to all intents and purposes, being strictly one Codex. This case, like the two next, happily does not admit of diversity of opinion. Next, F and G of St. Paul's Epistles, inasmuch as they are confessedly derived from one and the same archetype, are not to be reckoned as two authorities, but as one.

Again, the correspondence between the nine MSS. of the Ferrar group—Evann. 13 at Paris, 69 at Leicester, 124 at [pg 232] Vienna, 346 at Milan, 556 in the British Museum, 561 at Bank House, Wisbech,—and in a lesser degree, 348 at Milan, 624 at Crypta Ferrata, 788 at Athens,—is so extraordinary as to render it certain that these copies are in the main derived from one common archetype396. Hence, though one of them (788) is of the tenth century, three (348, 561, 624) are of the eleventh, four (13, 124, 346, 556) of the twelfth, and one (69) of the fourteenth, their joint evidence is held to be tantamount to the recovery of a lost uncial or papyrus of very early date,—which uncial or papyrus, by the way, it would be convenient to indicate by a new symbol, as Fr. standing for Ferrar, since F which was once attributed to them is now appropriated to the Codex Beratinus. If indicated numerically, the figures should at all events be connected by a hyphen (13-69-124-346-&c.); not as if they were independent witnesses, as Tischendorf quotes them. And lastly, B and ? are undeniably, more than any other two Codexes which can be named, the depositaries of one and the same peculiar, all but unique, text.

I propose to apply the foregoing remarks to the solution of one of the most important of Textual problems. That a controversy has raged around the last twelve verses of St. Mark's Gospel is known to all. Known also it is that a laborious treatise was published on the subject in 1871, which, in the opinion of competent judges, has had the effect of removing the “Last Twelve Verses of St. Mark” beyond the reach of suspicion. Notwithstanding this, at the end of ten years an attempt was made to revive the old plea. The passage, say Drs. Westcott and Hort, “manifestly cannot claim any Apostolic authority; but is doubtless founded on some tradition of the Apostolic age,” of which the “precise date must remain unknown.” It is “a very early interpolation” (pp. 51, 46). In a word, “the [pg 233] last twelve verses” of St. Mark's Gospel, according to Drs. Westcott and Hort, are spurious. But what is their ground of confidence? for we claim to be as competent to judge of testimony as they. It proves to be “the unique criterion supplied by the concord of the independent attestations of ? and B” (p. 46).

“Independent attestations”! But when two copies of the Gospel are confessedly derived from one and the same original, how can their “attestations” be called “independent”? This is however greatly to understate the case. The non-independence of B and ? in respect of St. Mark xvi. 9-20 is absolutely unique: for, strange to relate, it so happens that the very leaf on which the end of St. Mark's Gospel and the beginning of St. Luke's is written (St. Mark xvi. 2-Luke i. 56), is one of the six leaves of Cod. ? which are held to have been written by the scribe of Cod. B. “The inference,” remarks Scrivener, “is simple and direct, that at least in these leaves Codd. B? make but one witness, not two397.”

The principle of Genealogy admits of a more extended and a more important application to this case, because B and ? do not stand quite alone, but are exclusively associated with three or four other manuscripts which may be regarded as being descended from them. As far as we can judge, they may be regarded as the founders, or at least as prominent members of a family, whose descendants were few, because they were generally condemned by the generations which came after them. Not they, but other families upon other genealogical stems, were the more like to the patriarch whose progeny was to equal the stars of heaven in multitude.

Least of all shall I be so simple as to pretend to fix the [pg 234] precise date and assign a definite locality to the fontal source, or sources, of our present perplexity and distress. But I suspect that in the little handful of authorities which have acquired such a notoriety in the annals of recent Textual Criticism, at the head of which stand Codexes B and ?, are to be recognized the characteristic features of a lost family of (once well known) second or third-century documents, which owed their existence to the misguided zeal of some well-intentioned but utterly incompetent persons who devoted themselves to the task of correcting the Text of Scripture; but were entirely unfit for the undertaking398.

Yet I venture also to think that it was in a great measure at Alexandria that the text in question was fabricated. My chief reasons for thinking so are the following: (1) There is a marked resemblance between the peculiar readings of B? and the two Egyptian Versions,—the Bohairic or Version of Lower Egypt especially. (2) No one can fail to have been struck by the evident sympathy between Origen,—who at all events had passed more than half his life at Alexandria,—and the text in question. (3) I notice that Nonnus also, who lived in the Thebaid, exhibits considerable sympathy with the text which I deem so corrupt. (4) I cannot overlook the fact that Cod. ? was discovered in a monastery under the sway of the patriarch of Alexandria, though how it got there no evidence remains to point out. (5) The licentious handling so characteristic of the Septuagint Version of the O. T.,—the work of Alexandrian Jews,—points in the same direction, and leads me to suspect that Alexandria was the final source of the text of B-?. (6) I further observe that the sacred Text (?e?e???) in Cyril's Homilies [pg 235] on St. John is often similar to B-?; and this, I take for granted, was the effect of the school of Alexandria,—not of the patriarch himself. (7) Dionysius of Alexandria complains bitterly of the corrupt Codexes of his day: and certainly (8) Clemens habitually employed copies of a similar kind. He too was of Alexandria399.

Such are the chief considerations which incline me to suspect that Alexandria contributed largely to our Textual troubles.

The readings of B-? are the consequence of a junction of two or more streams and then of derivation from a single archetype. This inference is confirmed by the fact that the same general text which B exhibits is exhibited also by the eighth-century Codex L, the work probably of an Egyptian scribe400: and by the tenth-century Codex 33: and by the eleventh-century Codex 1: and to some extent by the twelfth-century Codex 69.

We have already been able to advance to another and a very important step. There is nothing in the history of the earliest times of the Church to prove that vellum manuscripts of the New Testament existed in any number before the fourth century. No such documents have come down to us. But we do know, as has been shewn above401, that writings on papyrus were transcribed on vellum in the library of Caesarea. What must we then conclude? That, as has been already suggested, papyrus MSS. are mainly the progenitors of the Uncials, and probably of the oldest Uncials. Besides this inference, we have seen that it is also most probable that many of the Cursives were transcribed directly from papyrus books or rolls. So that the Genealogy of manuscripts of the New Testament includes a vast number of descendants, and many lines of descent, which ramified from one stem on the original start from [pg 236] the autograph of each book. The Vatican and the Sinaitic do not stand pre-eminent because of any great line of parentage passing through them to a multitudinous posterity inheriting the earth, but they are members of a condemned family of which the issue has been small. The rejected of the fourth century has been spurned by succeeding centuries. And surely now also the fourth century, rich in a roll of men conspicuous ever since for capacity and learning, may be permitted to proclaim its real sentiments and to be judged from its own decisions, without being disfranchised by critics of the nineteenth.

The history of the Traditional Text, on the contrary, is continuous and complete under the view of Genealogy. The pedigree of it may be commended to the examination of the Heralds' College. It goes step by step in unbroken succession regularly back to the earliest time. The present printed editions may be compared for extreme accuracy with the text passed by the Elzevirs or Beza as the text received by all of their time. Erasmus followed his few MSS. because he knew them to be good representatives of the mind of the Church which had been informed under the ceaseless and loving care of mediaeval transcribers: and the text of Erasmus printed at Basle agreed in but little variation with the text of the Complutensian editors published in Spain, for which Cardinal Ximenes procured MSS. at whatever cost he could. No one doubts the coincidence in all essential points of the printed text with the text of the Cursives. Dr. Hort certifies the Cursive Text as far back as the middle of the fourth century. It depends upon various lines of descent, and rests on the testimony supplied by numerous contemporary Fathers before the year 1000 a.d., when co-existing MSS. failed to bear witness in multitudes. The acceptance of it by the Church of the fifth century, which saw the settlement of the great doctrinal controversies either made or confirmed, proves [pg 237] that the seal was set upon the validity of the earliest pedigrees by the illustrious intellects and the sound faith of those days. And in the fifth chapter of this work, contemporary witness is carried back to the first days. There is thus a cluster of pedigrees, not in one line but in many parallel courses of descent, not in one country but in several, ranging over the whole Catholic Church where Greek was understood, attested by Versions, and illustrated copiously by Fathers, along which without break in the continuity the Traditional Text in its main features has been transmitted. Doubtless something still remains for the Church to do under the present extraordinary wealth of authorities in the verification of some particulars issuing in a small number of alterations, not in challenging or changing like the other school anything approaching to one-eighth of the New Testament402: for that we now possess in the main the very Words of the Holy Gospels as they issued from their inspired authors, we are taught under the principle of Genealogy that there is no valid reason to doubt.

To conclude, the system which we advocate will be seen to contrast strikingly with that which is upheld by the opposing school, in three general ways:

I. We have with us width and depth against the narrowness on their side. They are conspicuously contracted in the fewness of the witnesses which they deem worthy of credence. They are restricted as to the period of history which alone they consider to deserve attention. They are confined with regard to the countries from which their testimony comes. They would supply Christians with a shortened text, and educate them under a cast-iron system. We on the contrary champion the many against the few: we welcome all witnesses, and weigh all testimony: we uphold all the ages against one or two, and [pg 238] all the countries against a narrow space. We maintain the genuine and all-round Catholicism of real Christendom against a discarded sectarianism exhumed from the fourth century. If we condemn, it is because the evidence condemns. We cling to all the precious Words that have come down to us, because they have been so preserved to our days under verdicts depending upon overwhelming proof.

II. We oppose facts to their speculation. They exalt B and ? and D because in their own opinion those copies are the best. They weave ingenious webs, and invent subtle theories, because their paradox of a few against the many requires ingenuity and subtlety for its support. Dr. Hort revelled in finespun theories and technical terms, such as “Intrinsic Probability,” “Transcriptional Probability,” “Internal evidence of Readings,” “Internal evidence of Documents,” which of course connote a certain amount of evidence, but are weak pillars of a heavy structure. Even conjectural emendation403 and inconsistent decrees404 are not rejected. They are infected with the theorizing which spoils some of the best German work, and with the idealism which is the bane of many academic minds, especially at Oxford and Cambridge. In contrast with this sojourn in cloudland, we are essentially of the earth though not earthy. We are nothing, if we are not grounded in facts: our appeal is to facts, our test lies in facts, so far as we can we build testimonies upon testimonies and pile facts on facts. We imitate the procedure of the courts of justice in decisions resulting from the converging product of all the evidence, when it has been cross-examined and sifted. As men of business, not less than students, we endeavour to pursue the studies of the library according to the best methods of the world.

III. Our opponents are gradually getting out of date: the world is drifting away from them. Thousands of [pg 239] manuscripts have been added to the known stores since Tischendorf formed his system, and Hort began to theorize, and their handful of favourite documents has become by comparison less and less. Since the deaths of both of those eminent critics, the treasures dug up in Egypt and elsewhere have put back the date of the science of palaeography from the fourth century after the Christian era to at least the third century before, and papyrus has sprung up into unexpected prominence in the ancient and mediaeval history of writing. It is discovered that there was no uncial period through which the genealogy of cursives has necessarily passed. Old theories on those points must generally be reconstructed if they are to tally with known facts. But this accession of knowledge which puts our opponents in the wrong, has no effect on us except to confirm our position with new proof. Indeed, we welcome the unlocking of the all but boundless treasury of ancient wealth, since our theory, being as open as possible, and resting upon the visible and real, remains not only uninjured but strengthened. If it were to require any re-arrangement, that would be only a re-ordering of particulars, not of our principles which are capacious enough to admit of any addition of materials of judgement. We trust to the Church of all the ages as the keeper and witness of Holy Writ, we bow to the teaching of the Holy Ghost, as conveyed in all wisdom by facts and evidence: and we are certain, that, following no preconceived notions of our own, but led under such guidance, moved by principles so reasonable and comprehensive, and observing rules and instructions appealing to us with such authority, we are in all main respects