  It is remarkable that whenever the construction is somewhat harsh or obscure, D and the Latin copies are observed freely to transpose,—to supply,—and even slightly to paraphrase,—in order to bring out the presumed meaning of the original. An example is furnished by St. Luke i. 65, where the Evangelist, having related that Zacharias wrote—“His name is John,” adds,—“and all wondered. And his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue, and he spake praising God.” The meaning of course is that his tongue “was loosed.” Accordingly D actually supplies ?????,—the Latin copies, “resoluta est.” But D does more. Presuming that what occasioned the “wonder” was not so much what Zacharias wrote on the tablet as the restored gift of speech, it puts that clause first,—ingeniously transposing the first two words (pa?a???a ?a?); the result of which is the following sentence:—“And immediately his tongue was loosed; and all wondered. And his mouth was opened, and he spake praising God”.... In the next verse it is related that “fear came upon all who dwelt round about them.” But the order of the words in the original being unusual (?a? ????et? ?p? p??ta? f??? t??? pe????????ta? a?t???), D and the Latin copies transpose them: (indeed the three Syriac do the same): but D b c gratuitously introduce an epithet,—?a? e?e?et? f??? e?a? ep? pa?ta? t??? pe????????ta? a?t??.... In ver. 70, the expression t?? ?p? a????? p??f?t?? a?t?? appearing harsh was (by transposing the words) altered into this, which is the easy [pg 186] The phenomenon however which perplexes me most in Cod. D is that it abounds in fabricated readings which have nothing whatever to recommend them. Not contented with St. Luke's expression “to thrust out a little (??????) from the land” (v. 3), the scribe writes ?s?? ?s??. In ver. 5, instead of “I will let down the net” (?a??s? t? d??t???) he makes St. Peter reply, “I will not neglect to obey” (?? ? pa?a???s?a?). So, for “and when they had this done,” he writes “and when they had straightway let down the nets”: and immediately after, instead of d?e??????t? d? t? d??t??? a?t?? we are presented with ?ste ta d??t?a ??sses?a?. It is very difficult to account for this, except on an hypothesis which I confess recommends itself to me more and more: viz. that there were in circulation in some places during the earliest ages of the Church Evangelical paraphrases, or at least free exhibitions of the chief Gospel incidents,—to which the critics resorted; and from which the less judicious did not hesitate to borrow expressions and even occasionally to extract short passages. Such loose representations of passages must have prevailed both in Syria, and in the West where Greek was not so well understood, and where translators into the vernacular Latin expressed themselves with less precision, whilst they attempted also to explain the passages translated. This notion, viz. that it is within the province of a Copyist to interpret the original before him, clearly lies at the root of many a so-called “various reading.” [pg 187]Thus for the difficult ?p?a??? ???a?e (in St. Mark xiv. 72), “when he thought thereon” (i.e. “when in self-abandonment he flung himself upon the thought”), “he wept,” D exhibits ?a? ???at? ??a?e??, “and he began to weep,” a much easier and a very natural expression, only that it is not the right one, and does not express all that the true words convey. Hence also the transposition by D and some Old Latin MSS. of the clause ?? ??? ??a? sf?d?a “for it was very great” from xvi. 4, where it seems to be out of place, to ver. 3 where it seems to be necessary. Eusebius is observed to have employed a MS. similarly corrupt. Hence again the frequent unauthorized insertion of a nominative case to determine the sense: e.g. ? ???e??? “the angel,” xvi. 6, ? d? ??s?f “Joseph,” xv. 46, or the substitution of the name intended for the pronoun,—as t?? ???saed (sic) for a?t?? in St. Luke i. 41. Hence in xvi. 7, instead of, “He goeth before you into Galilee, there shall ye see Him as He said unto you,”—D exhibits,—“Behold, I go before you into Galilee, there shall ye see Me, as I told you.” As if it had been thought allowable to recall in this place the fact that our Saviour had once (St. Matt. xxvi. 32, St. Mark xiv. 28) spoken these words in His own person. And in no other way can I explain D's vapid substitution, made as if from habit, of “a Galilean city” for “a city of Galilee, named Nazareth” in St. Luke i. 26. Hence the frequent insertion of a wholly manufactured clause in order to impart a little more clearness to the story—as of the words t? ???a a?t?? “his name” (after ?????seta? “shall be called”)—into St. Luke i. 60. These passages afford expressions of a feature in this Manuscript to which we must again invite particular attention. It reveals to close observation frequent indications of an attempt, not to supply a faithful representation of the very words of Holy Scripture and nothing more [pg 188] In speaking of the character of a MS. one is often constrained to distinguish between the readings and the scribe. The readings may be clearly fabricated: but there may be evidence that the copyist was an accurate and painstaking person. On the other hand, obviously the scribe may have been a considerable blunderer, and yet it may be clear that he was furnished with an admirable archetype. In the case of D we are presented with the alarming concurrence of a fabricated archetype and either a blundering scribe, or a course of blundering scribes. But then further,—One is often obliged (if one would be accurate) to distinguish between the penman who actually produced the MS., and the critical reader for whom he toiled. It would really seem however as if the actual transcriber of D, or the transcribers of the ancestors of D, had invented some of those monstrous readings as they went on. The Latin version which is found in this MS. exactly reflects, as a rule, the Greek on the opposite page: but sometimes it bears witness to the admitted truth of Scripture, while the Greek goes off in alia omnia265. |
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