The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels

2. Caesarean School.

In the year 231, as seems most probable, Origen finally left Alexandria. His head-quarters thenceforward may be said to have been Caesarea in Palestine, though he travelled into Greece and Arabia and stayed at Neo-Caesarea in Cappadocia with his friend and pupil Gregory Thaumaturgus. He had previously visited Rome: so that he must have been well qualified by his experience as well as probably by his knowledge and collection of MSS. to lay a broad foundation for the future settlement of the text. But unfortunately his whole career marks him out as a man of uncertain judgement. Like some others, he was a giant in learning, but ordinary in the use of his learning. He was also closely connected with the philosophical school of Alexandria, from which Arianism issued.

The leading figures in this remarkable School of Textual Criticism at Caesarea were Origen and Eusebius, besides Pamphilus who forms the link between the two. The ground-work of the School was the celebrated library in the city which was formed upon the foundation supplied by Origen, so far as the books in it escaped the general destruction of MSS. that occurred in the persecution [pg 153] of Diocletian. It is remarkable, that although there seems little doubt that the Vatican and Sinaitic MSS. were amongst the fruits of this school, as will be shewn in the next chapter, the witness of the writings of both Origen and Eusebius is so favourable as it is to the Traditional Text. In the case of Origen there is as already stated194 not far from an equality between the totals on either side, besides a majority of 44 to 27 on the thirty important texts: and the numbers for Eusebius are respectively 315 to 214, and 41 to 11.

Palestine was well suited from its geographical position to be the site of the junction of all the streams. The very same circumstances which adapted it to be the arena of the great drama in the world's history drew to its shores the various elements in the representation in language of the most characteristic part of the Word of God. The Traditional Text would reach it by various routes: the Syrio-Low-Latin across the sea and from Syria: the Alexandrian readings from the near neighbourhood. Origen in his travels would help to assemble all. The various alien streams would thus coalesce, and the text of B and ? would be the result. But the readings of MSS. recorded by Origen and especially by Eusebius prove that in this broad school the Traditional Text gained at least a decided preponderance according to the private choice of the latter scholar. Yet, as will be shewn, he was probably, not the writer of B and of the six conjugate leaves in ?, yet as the executor of the order of Constantine the superintendent also in copying those celebrated MSS. Was he then influenced by the motives of a courtier in sending such texts as he thought would be most acceptable to the Emperor? Or is it not more in consonance with the facts of the case—especially as interpreted by the subsequent spread in [pg 154] Constantinople of the Traditional Text195—, that we should infer that the fifty MSS. sent included a large proportion of Texts of another character? Eusebius, the Homoiousian or Semi-Arian, would thus be the collector of copies to suit different tastes and opinions, and his scholar and successor Acacius, the Homoean, would more probably be the writer of B and of the six conjugate leaves of ?196. The trimming character of the latitudinarian, and the violent forwardness of the partisan, would appear to render such a supposition not unreasonable. Estimating the school according to principles of historical philosophy, and in consonance with both the existence of the Text denoted by B and ? and also the subsequent results, it must appear to us to be transitional in character, including two distinct and incongruous solutions, of which one was afterwards proved to be the right by the general acceptation in the Church that even Dr. Hort acknowledges to have taken place.

An interesting inquiry is here suggested with respect to the two celebrated MSS. just mentioned. How is it that we possess no MSS. of the New Testament of any considerable size older than those, or at least no other such MSS. as old as they are? Besides the disastrous results of the persecution of Diocletian, there is much force in the reply of Dean Burgon, that being generally recognized as bad MSS. they were left standing on the shelf in their handsome covers, whilst others which were more correct were being thumbed to pieces in constant use. But the discoveries made since the Dean's death enables me to suggest another answer which will also help to enlarge our view on these matters.

The habit of writing on vellum belongs to Asia. The first mention of it that we meet with occurs in the 58th [pg 155] chapter of the 5th book of Herodotus, where the historian tells us that the Ionians wrote on the skins of sheep and goats because they could not get “byblus,” or as we best know it, papyrus. Vellum remained in comparative obscurity till the time of Eumenes II, King of Pergamum. That intelligent potentate, wishing to enlarge his library and being thwarted by the Ptolemies who refused out of jealousy to supply him with papyrus, improved the skins of his country197, and made the “charta Pergamena,” from whence the term parchment has descended to us. It will be remembered that St. Paul sent to Ephesus for “the books, especially the parchments198.” There is evidence that vellum was used at Rome: but the chief materials employed there appear to have been waxen tablets and papyrus. Martial, writing towards the end of the first century, speaks of vellum MSS. of Homer, Virgil, Cicero, and Ovid199. But if such MSS. had prevailed generally, more would have come down to us. The emergence of vellum into general use is marked and heralded by the products of the library at Caesarea, which helped by the rising literary activity in Asia and by the building of Constantinople, was probably the means of the introduction of an improved employment of vellum. It has been already noticed200, that Acacius and Euzoius, successively bishops of Caesarea after Eusebius, superintended the copying of papyrus manuscripts upon vellum. Greek uncials were not unlike in general form to the square Hebrew letters used at Jerusalem after the Captivity. The activity in Asiatic Caesarea synchronized with the rise in the use of vellum. It would seem that in moving there Origen deserted papyrus for the more durable material.

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A word to explain my argument. If vellum had been in constant use over the Roman Empire during the first three centuries and a third which elapsed before B and ? were written, there ought to have been in existence some remains of a material so capable of resisting the tear and wear of use and time. As there are no vellum MSS. at all except the merest fragments dating from before 330 a.d., we are perforce driven to infer that a material for writing of a perishable nature was generally employed before that period. Now not only had papyrus been for “long the recognized material for literary use,” but we can trace its employment much later than is usually supposed. It is true that the cultivation of the plant in Egypt began to wane after the capture of Alexandria by the Mahommedans in 638 a.d., and the destruction of the famous libraries: but it continued in existence during some centuries afterwards. It was grown also in Sicily and Italy. “In France papyrus was in common use in the sixth century.” Sir E. Maunde Thompson enumerates books now found in European Libraries of Paris, Genoa, Milan, Vienna, Munich, and elsewhere, as far down as the tenth century. The manufacture of it did not cease in Egypt till the tenth century. The use of papyrus did not lapse finally till paper was introduced into Europe by the Moors and Arabs201, upon which occurrence all writing was executed upon tougher substances, and the cursive hand drove out uncial writing even from parchment.

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The knowledge of the prevalence of papyrus, as to which any one may satisfy himself by consulting Sir E. Maunde Thompson's admirable book, and of the employment of the cursive hand before Christ, must modify many of the notions that have been widely entertained respecting the old Uncials.

1. In the first place, it will be clear that all the Cursive MSS. are not by any means the descendants of the Uncials. If the employment of papyrus in the earliest ages of the Christian Church was prevalent over by far the greater part of the Roman Empire, and that description is I believe less than the facts would warrant—then more than half of the stems of genealogy must have originally consisted of papyrus manuscripts. And further, if the use of papyrus continued long after the date of B and ?, then it would not only have occupied the earliest steps in the lines of descent, but much later exemplars must have carried on the succession. But in consequence of the perishable character of papyrus those exemplars have disappeared and live only in their cursive posterity. This aspect alone of the case under consideration invests the Cursives with much more interest and value than many people would nowadays attribute to them.

2. But beyond this conclusion, light is shed upon the subject by the fact now established beyond question, that cursive handwriting existed in the world some centuries before Christ202. For square letters (of course in writing interspersed with circular lines) we go to Palestine and Syria, and that may not impossibly be the reason why uncial Greek letters came out first, as far as the evidence of extant remains can guide us, in those countries. The change [pg 158] from uncial to cursive letters about the tenth century is most remarkable. Must it not to a great extent have arisen from the contemporary failure of papyrus which has been explained, and from the cursive writers on papyrus now trying their hand on vellum and introducing their more easy and rapid style of writing into that class of manuscripts203? If so, the phenomenon shews itself, that by the very manner in which they are written, Cursives mutely declare that they are not solely the children of the Uncials. Speaking generally, they are the progeny of a marriage between the two, and the papyrus MSS. would appear to have been the better half.

Such results as have been reached in this chapter and the last have issued from the advance made in discovery and research during the last ten years. But these were not known to Tischendorf or Tregelles, and much less to Lachmann. They could not have been embraced by Hort in his view of the entire subject when he constructed his clever but unsound theory some forty years ago204. Surely our conclusion must be that the world is leaving that school gradually behind.

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Chapter IX. The Old Uncials. The Influence Of Origen.

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