We must proceed now to consider the other Notes, or Tests: and the next is Number.

1. That “witnesses are to be weighed—not counted,”—is a maxim of which we hear constantly. It may be said to embody much fundamental fallacy.

2. It assumes that the “witnesses” we possess,—meaning thereby every single Codex, Version, Father—, (1) are capable of being weighed: and (2) that every individual Critic is competent to weigh them: neither of which propositions is true.

3. In the very form of the maxim,—“Not to be counted—but to be weighed,”—the undeniable fact is overlooked that “number” is the most ordinary ingredient of weight, and indeed in matters of human testimony, is an element which even cannot be cast away. Ask one of Her Majesty's Judges if it be not so. Ten witnesses (suppose) are called in to give evidence: of whom one resolutely contradicts what is solemnly deposed to by the other nine. Which of the two parties do we suppose the Judge will be inclined to believe?

4. But it may be urged—would not the discovery of the one original autograph of the Gospels exceed in “weight” any “number” of copies which can be named? No doubt [pg 044] it would, I answer. But only because it would be the original document, and not “a copy” at all: not “a witness” to the fact, but the very fact itself. It would be as if in the midst of a trial,—turning, suppose, on the history of the will of some testator—, the dead man himself were to step into Court, and proclaim what had actually taken place. Yet the laws of Evidence would remain unchanged: and in the very next trial which came on, if one or two witnesses out of as many hundred were to claim that their evidence should be held to outweigh that of all the rest, they would be required to establish the reasonableness of their claim to the satisfaction of the Judge: or they must submit to the inevitable consequence of being left in an inconsiderable minority.

5. Number then constitutes Weight, or in other words,—since I have used “Weight” here in a more general sense than usual,—is a Note of Truth. Not of course absolutely, as being the sole Test, but caeteris paribus, and in its own place and proportion. And this, happily, our opponents freely admit: so freely in fact, that my only wonder is that they do not discover their own inconsistency.

6. But the axiom in question labours under the far graver defect of disparaging the Divine method, under which in the multitude of evidence preserved all down the ages provision has been made as matter of hard fact, not by weight but by number, for the integrity of the Deposit. The prevalent use of the Holy Scriptures in the Church caused copies of them to abound everywhere. The demand enforced the supply. They were read in the public Services of the Church. The constant quotation of them by Ecclesiastical Writers from the first proves that they were a source to Christians of continual study, and that they were used as an ultimate appeal in the decision of knotty questions. They were cited copiously in Sermons. They were employed in the conversion of the heathen, and as in the case [pg 045] of St. Cyprian must have exercised a strong influence in bringing people to believe.

Such an abundance of early copies must have ensured perforce the production of a resulting abundance of other copies made everywhere in continuous succession from them until the invention of printing. Accordingly, although countless numbers must have perished by age, use, destruction in war, and by accident and other causes, nevertheless 63 Uncials, 737 Cursives, and 414 Lectionaries are known to survive of the Gospels alone28. Add the various Versions, and the mass of quotations by Ecclesiastical Writers, and it will at once be evident what materials exist to constitute a Majority which shall outnumber by many times the Minority, and also that Number has been ordained to be a factor which cannot be left out of the calculation.

7. Another circumstance however of much significance has yet to be stated. Practically the Axiom under consideration is discovered to be nothing else but a plausible proposition of a general character intended to shelter the following particular application of it:—“We are able”—says Dr. Tregelles—“to take the few documents ... and safely discard ... the 89/90 or whatever else their numerical proportion may be29.” Accordingly in his edition of the Gospels, the learned writer rejects the evidence of all the cursive Codexes extant but three. He is mainly followed by the rest of his school, including Westcott and Hort.

Now again I ask,—Is it likely, is it in any way credible, that we can be warranted in rejecting the testimony of (suppose) 1490 ancient witnesses, in favour of the testimony borne by (suppose) ten? Granting freely that two of these ten are older by 50 or 100 years than any single MS. of the 1490 I confidently repeat the question. The respective [pg 046] dates of the witnesses before us may perhaps be thus stated. The ten MSS. so confidently relied upon date as follows, speaking generally:—

The 1490 MSS. which are constantly observed to bear consentient testimony against the ten, date somewhat thus:—

And the question to which I invite the reader to render an answer is this:—By what process of reasoning, apart from an appeal to other authorities, (which we are going to make by-and-by), can it be thought credible that the few witnesses shall prove the trustworthy guides,—and the many witnesses the deceivers?

Now those many MSS. were executed demonstrably at different times in different countries. They bear signs in their many hundreds of representing the entire area of the Church, except where versions were used instead of copies in the original Greek. Many of them were written in monasteries where a special room was set aside for such copying. Those who were in trust endeavoured with the utmost pains and jealousy to secure accuracy in the transcription. Copying was a sacred art. And yet, of multitudes of them that survive, hardly any have been copied from any of the rest. On the contrary, they are discovered to differ among themselves in countless unimportant particulars; and every here and there single copies exhibit idiosyncrasies which are altogether startling and extraordinary. There has therefore demonstrably been no collusion—no assimilation [pg 047] to an arbitrary standard,—no wholesale fraud. It is certain that every one of them represents a MS., or a pedigree of MSS., older than itself; and it is but fair to suppose that it exercises such representation with tolerable accuracy. It can often be proved, when any of them exhibit marked extravagancy, that such extravagancy dates back as far as the second or third century. I venture to think—and shall assume until I find that I am mistaken—that, besides the Uncials, all the cursive copies in existence represent lost Codexes of great antiquity with at least the same general fidelity as Ev. 1, 33, 69, which enjoy so much favour in some quarters only because they represent lost MSS. demonstrably of the same general type as Codd. ?BD30.

It will be seen that the proofs in favour of Number being a recognized and powerful Note of Truth are so strong, that nothing but the interests of an absorbing argument can prevent the acknowledgement of this position. It is doubtless inconvenient to find some 1490 witnesses contravening some ten, or if you will, twenty favourites: but Truth is imperative and knows nothing of the inconvenience or convenience of Critics.

8. When therefore the great bulk of the witnesses,—in the proportion suppose of a hundred or even fifty to one,—yield unfaltering testimony to a certain reading; and the remaining little handful of authorities, while advocating a different reading, are yet observed to be unable to agree among themselves as to what that different reading shall precisely be,—then that other reading concerning which all that discrepancy of detail is observed to exist, may be regarded as certainly false.

I will now give an instance of the general need of the testimony of Number being added to Antiquity, in order to establish a Reading.