The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels. John William Burgon
itself in the Vulgate. But surely we of the Church of England who have been hitherto spared this second blunder, may reasonably (at the end of 1700 years) refuse to take the first downward step. Our Lord intended no contrast whatever between two localities—but between two parties. The comfortable estate of the hired servants He set against the abject misery of the Son: not the house wherein the servants dwelt, and the spot where the poor prodigal was standing when he came to a better mind.—These are many words; but I know not how to be briefer. And—what is worthy of discussion, if not the utterances of 'the Word made flesh?'
If hesitation to accept the foregoing verdict lingers in any quarter, it ought to be dispelled by a glance at the context in [Symbol: Aleph]BL. What else but the instinct of a trained understanding is it to survey the neighbourhood of a place like the present? Accordingly, we discover that in ver. 16, for γεμισαι την κοιλιαν αυτου απο, [Symbol: Aleph]BDLR present us with χορτασθηναι εκ: and in ver. 22, the prodigal, on very nearly the same authority ([Symbol: Aleph]BDUX), is made to say to his father—Ποιησον με 'ως 'ενα των μισθιων σου:
Which certainly he did not say[72]. Moreover, [Symbol: Aleph]BLX and the Old Latin are for thrusting in ταχυ (D ταχεως) after εξενεγκατε. Are not these one and all confessedly fabricated readings? the infelicitous attempts of some well-meaning critic to improve upon the inspired original?
From the fact that three words in St. John v. 44 were in the oldest MSS. written thus—ΜΟΝΟΥΘΥΟΥ (i.e. μονου Θεου ου), the middle word (θεου) got omitted from some very early copies; whereby the sentence is made to run thus in English—'And seek not the honour which cometh from the only One.' It is so that Origen[73], Eusebius[74], Didymus[75], besides the two best copies of the Old Latin, exhibit the place. As to Greek MSS., the error survives only in B at the present day, the preserver of an Alexandrian error.
§ 3.
St. Luke explains (Acts xxvii. 14) that it was the 'typhonic wind called Euroclydon' which caused the ship in which St. Paul and he sailed past Crete to incur the 'harm and loss' so graphically described in the last chapter but one of the Acts. That wind is mentioned nowhere but in this one place. Its name however is sufficiently intelligible; being compounded of Ευρος, the 'south-east wind,' and κλυδων, 'a tempest:' a compound which happily survives intact in the Peshitto version. The Syriac translator, not knowing what the word meant, copied what he saw—'the blast' (he says) 'of the tempest[76], which [blast] is called Tophonikos Euroklidon.' Not so the licentious scribes of the West. They insisted on extracting out of the actual 'Euroclydon,' the imaginary name 'Euro-aquilo,' which accordingly stands to this day in the Vulgate. (Not that Jerome himself so read the name of the wind, or he would hardly have explained 'Eurielion' or 'Euriclion' to mean 'commiscens, sive deorsum ducens[77].') Of this feat of theirs, Codexes [Symbol: Aleph] and A (in which ΕΥΡΟΚΛΥΔΩΝ has been perverted into ΕΥΡΑΚΥΛΩΝ) are at this day the sole surviving Greek witnesses. Well may the evidence for 'Euro-aquilo' be scanty! The fabricated word collapses the instant it is examined. Nautical men point out that it is 'inconsistent in its construction with the principles on which the names of the intermediate or compound winds are framed:'—
'Euronotus is so called as intervening immediately between Eurus and Notus, and as partaking, as was thought, of the qualities of both. The same holds true of Libonotus, as being interposed between Libs and Notus. Both these compound winds lie in the same quarter or quadrant of the circle with the winds of which they are composed, and no other wind intervenes. But Eurus and Aquilo are at 90° distance from one another; or according to some writers, at 105°; the former lying in the south-east quarter, and the latter in the north-east: and two winds, one of which is the East cardinal point, intervene, as Caecias and Subsolanus[78].'
Further, why should the wind be designated by an impossible Latin name? The ship was 'a ship of Alexandria' (ver. 6). The sailors were Greeks. What business has 'Aquilo' here? Next, if the wind did bear the name of 'Euro-aquilo,' why is it introduced in this marked way (ανεμος τυφωνικος, 'ο καλουμενος) as if it were a kind of curiosity? Such a name would utterly miss the point, which is the violence of the wind as expressed in the term Euroclydon. But above all, if St. Luke wrote ΕΥΡΑΚ-, how has it come to pass that every copyist but three has written ΕΥΡΟΚ-? The testimony of B is memorable. The original scribe wrote ΕΥΡΑΚΥΔΩΝ[79]: the secunda mantis has corrected this into ΕΥΡΥΚΛΥΔΩΝ—which is also the reading of Euthalius[80]. The essential circumstance is, that not ΥΛΩΝ but ΥΔΩΝ has all along been the last half of the word in Codex B[81].
In St. John iv. 15, on the authority of [Symbol: Aleph]B, Tischendorf adopts διερχεσθαι (in place of the uncompounded verb), assigning as his reason, that 'If St. John had written ερχεσθαι, no one would ever have substituted διερχεσθαι for it.' But to construct the text of Scripture on such considerations, is to build a lighthouse on a quicksand. I could have referred the learned Critic to plenty of places where the thing he speaks of as incredible has been done. The proof that St. John used the uncompounded verb is the fact that it is found in all the copies except our two untrustworthy friends. The explanation of ΔΙερχωμαι is sufficiently accounted for by the final syllable (ΔΕ) of μηδε which immediately precedes. Similarly but without the same excuse,
St. Mark x. 16 ευλογει has become κατευλογει ([Symbol: Aleph]BC). St. Mark xii. 17 θαυμασαν has become εζεθαυμασαν ([Symbol: Aleph]B). St. Mark xiv. 40 βεβαρημενοι has become καταβεβαρημενοι (A[Symbol: Aleph]B).
It is impossible to doubt that και (in modern critical editions of St. Luke xvii. 37) is indebted for its existence to the same cause. In the phrase εκει συναχθησονται 'οι αετοι it might have been predicted that the last syllable of εκει would some day be mistaken for the conjunction. And so it has actually come to pass. ΚΑΙ οι αετοι is met with in many ancient authorities. But [Symbol: Aleph]LB also transposed the clauses, and substituted επισυναχθησονται for συναχθησονται. The self-same casualty, viz. και elicited out of the insertion of εκει and the transposition of the clauses, is discoverable among the Cursives at St. Matt. xxiv. 28—the parallel place: where by the way the old uncials distinguish themselves by yet graver eccentricities[82]. How can we as judicious critics ever think of disturbing the text of Scripture on evidence so precarious as this?
It is proposed that we should henceforth read St. Matt. xxii. 23 as follows:—'On that day there came to Him Sadducees saying that there is no Resurrection.' A new incident would be in this way introduced into the Gospel narrative: resulting from a novel reading of the passage. Instead of 'οι λεγοντες, we are invited to read λεγοντες, on the authority