The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels. John William Burgon
this palpable blunder is found.
§ 6.
I have reserved for the last a specimen which is second to none in suggestiveness. 'Whom will ye that I release unto you?' asked Pilate on a memorable occasion[92]: and we all remember how his enquiry proceeds. But the discovery is made that, in an early age there existed copies of the Gospel which proceeded thus—'Jesus [who is called[93]] Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?' Origen so quotes the place, but 'In many copies,' he proceeds, 'mention is not made that Barabbas was also called Jesus: and those copies may perhaps be right—else would the name of Jesus belong to one of the wicked—of which no instance occurs in any part of the Bible: nor is it fitting that the name of Jesus should like Judas have been borne by saint and sinner alike. I think,' Origen adds, 'something of this sort must have been an interpolation of the heretics[94].' From this we are clearly intended to infer that 'Jesus Barabbas' was the prevailing reading of St. Matt. xxvii. 17 in the time of Origen, a circumstance which—besides that a multitude of copies existed as well as those of Origen—for the best of reasons, we take leave to pronounce incredible[95].
The sum of the matter is probably this:—Some inattentive second century copyist [probably a Western Translator into Syriac who was an indifferent Greek scholar] mistook the final syllable of 'unto you' (ΥΜΙΝ) for the word 'Jesus' (ΙΝ): in other words, carelessly reduplicated the last two letters of ΥΜΙΝ—from which, strange to say, results the form of inquiry noticed at the outset. Origen caught sight of the extravagance, and condemned it though he fancied it to be prevalent, and the thing slept for 1500 years. Then about just fifty years ago Drs. Lachmann, Tischendorf and Tregelles began to construct that 'fabric of Textual Criticism' which has been the cause of the present treatise [though indeed Tischendorf does not adopt the suggestion of those few aberrant cursives which is supported by no surviving uncial, and in fact advocates the very origin of the mischief which has been just described]. But, as every one must see, 'such things as these are not 'readings' at all, nor even the work of 'the heretics;' but simply transcriptional mistakes. How Dr. Hort, admitting the blunder, yet pleads that 'this remarkable reading is attractive by the new and interesting fact which it seems to attest, and by the antithetic force which it seems to add to the question in ver. 17,' [is more than we can understand. To us the expression seems most repulsive. No 'antithetic force' can outweigh our dislike to the idea that Barabbas was our Saviour's namesake! We prefer Origen's account, though he mistook the cause, to that of the modern critic.]
FOOTNOTES:
[61] It is clearly unsafe to draw any inference from the mere omission of ηδη in ver. 35, by those Fathers who do not shew how they would have began ver. 36—as Eusebius (see below, note 2), Theodoret (i. 1398: ii. 233), and Hilary (78. 443. 941. 1041).
[62] i. 219: iii. 158: iv. 248, 250 bis, 251 bis, 252, 253, 255 bis, 256, 257. Also iv. 440 note, which = catox iv. 21.
[63] dem. 440. But not in cs. 426: theoph. 262, 275.
[64] vii. 488, 662: ix. 32.
[65] i. 397. 98. (Palladius) 611: iii. 57. So also in iv. 199, ετοιμος ηδη προς το πιστευειν.
[66] Ambrose, ii. 279, has 'Et qui metit.' Iren.int substitutes 'nam' for 'et,' and omits 'jam.' Jerome 9 times introduces 'jam' before 'albae sunt.' So Aug. (iii.^2 417): but elsewhere (iv. 639: v. 531) he omits the word altogether.
[67] 'Hic' is not recognized in Ambrose. Append. ii. 367.
[68] The Fathers render us very little help here. Ps.-Chrys. twice (viii. 34: x. 838) has εγω δε ωδε: once (viii. 153) not. John Damascene (ii. 579) is without the ωδε.
[69] i. 76: vi. 16 (not vi. 484).
[70] iii.2 259 (not v. 511).
[71] p. 405.
[72] [The prodigal was prepared to say this; but his father's kindness stopped him:—a feature in the account which the Codexes in question ignore.]
[73] iii. 687. But in i. 228 and 259 he recognizes θεου.
[74] Ap. Mai vii. 135.
[75] Praep. xiii. 6—μονου του 'ενος (vol. ii. 294).
[76] Same word occurs in St. Mark iv. 37.
[77] iii. 101.
[78] Falconer's Dissertation on St. Paul's Voyage, pp. 16 and 12.
[79] Let the learned Vercellone be heard on behalf of Codex B: 'Antequam manum de tabulâ amoveamus, e re fore videtur, si, ipso codice Vaticano inspecto, duos injectos scrupulos eximamus. Cl. Tischendorfius in nuperrimâ suâ editione scribit (Proleg. p. cclxxv), Maium ad Act. xxvii. 14, codici Vaticano tribuisse a primâ manu ευρακλυδων; nos vero ευρακυδων; atque subjungit, "utrumque, ut videtur, male." At, quidquid "videri" possit, certum nobis exploratumque est Vaticanum codicem primo habuisse ευρακυδων, prout expressum fuit tum in tabella quâ Maius Birchianas lectiones notavit, tum in alterâ quâ nos errata corrigenda recensuimus.'—Præfatio to Mai's 2nd ed. of the Cod. Vaticanus, 1859 (8vo), p. v. § vi. [Any one may now see this in the photographed copy.]
[80] Ap. Galland. x. 225.
[81] Remark that some vicious sections evidently owed their origin to the copyist knowing more of Latin than of Greek.
True, that the compounds euronotus euroauster exist in Latin. That is the reason why the Latin translator (not understanding the word) rendered it Euroaquilo: instead of writing Euraquilo.
I have no doubt that it was some Latin copyist who began the mischief.