The Criticism of the New Testament. Frederick Henry Ambrose Scrivener
(15) A large portion of our various readings arises from the omission or insertion of such words as cause little appreciable difference in the sense. To this class belong the pronouns αὐτοῦ, αὐτῷ, αὐτῶν, αὐτοῖς, the particles οὖν, δέ, τε, and the interchange of οὐδέ and οὔτε, as also of καί and δέ at the opening of a sentence.
(16) Manuscripts greatly fluctuate in adding and rejecting the Greek article, and the sense is often seriously influenced by these variations, though they seem so minute. In Mark ii. 26 ἐπὶ Ἀβιάθαρ ἀρχιερέως “in the time that Abiathar was high priest” would be historically incorrect, while ἐπὶ Ἀβιάθαρ τοῦ ἀρχιερέως “in the days of Abiathar the high priest” is suitable enough. The article will often impart vividness and reality to an expression, where its presence is not indispensable: e.g. Luke xii. 54 τὴν νεφέλην (if τήν be authentic, as looks probable) is the peculiar cloud spoken of in 1 Kings xviii. 44 as portending rain. Bishop Middleton's monograph (“Doctrine of the Greek Article applied to the Criticism and Illustration of the New Testament”), though apparently little known to certain of our most highly esteemed Biblical scholars, even if its philological groundwork be thought a little precarious, must always be regarded as the text-book on this interesting subject, and is a lasting monument of intellectual acuteness and exact learning.
(17) Not a few various readings may be imputed to the peculiarities of the style of writing adopted in the oldest manuscripts. Thus ΠΡΟΣΤΕΤΑΓΜΕΝΟΥΣΚΑΙΡΟΥΣ Acts xvii. 26 may be divided into two words or three; ΚΑΙΤΑΠΑΝΤΑ ibid. ver. 25, by a slight change, has degenerated into κατὰ πάντα. The habitual abridgement of such words as Θεός or Κύριος sometimes leads to a corruption of the text. Hence possibly comes the grave variation ΟΣ for ΘΣ 1 Tim. iii. 16, and the singular reading τῷ καιρῷ δουλεύοντες Rom. xii. 11, where the true word Κυρίῳ was first shortened into ΚΡΩ11, and then read as ΚΡΩ, Κ being employed to indicate ΚΑΙ in very early times12. Or a large initial letter, which the scribe usually reserved for a subsequent review, may have been altogether neglected: whence we have τι for Οτι before στενή Matt. vii. 14. Or overscores, placed over a letter (especially at the end of a line and word) to denote ν, may have been lost sight of; e.g. λίθον μέγα Matt. xxvii. 60 in several copies, for ΜΕΓΑ [with a line over the final Α]. The use of the symbol [symbol composed of Pi and Rho together], which in the Herculanean rolls and now and then in Codex Sinaiticus stands for προ and προς indifferently, may have produced that remarkable confusion of the two prepositions when compounded with verbs which we notice in Matt. xxvi. 39; Mark xiv. 35; Acts xii. 6; xvii. 5, 26; xx. 5, 13; xxii. 25. It will be seen hereafter that as the earliest manuscripts have few marks of punctuation, breathing or accent, these points (often far from indifferent) must be left in a great measure to an editor's taste and judgement.
(18) Slips of the pen, whereby words are manifestly lost or repeated, mis-spelt or half-finished, though of no interest to the critic, must yet be noted by a faithful collator, as they will occasionally throw light on the history of some particular copy in connexion with others, and always indicate the degree of care or skill employed by the scribe, and consequently the weight due to his general testimony.
The great mass of various readings we have hitherto attempted to classify (to our first and second heads we will recur presently) are manifestly due to mere inadvertence or human frailty, and certainly cannot be imputed to any deliberate intention of transcribers to tamper with the text of Scripture. We must give a different account of a few passages (we are glad they are only a few) which yet remain to be noticed.
(19) The copyist may be tempted to forsake his proper function for that of a reviser, or critical corrector. He may simply omit what he does not understand (e.g. δευτεροπρώτῳ Luke vi. 1; τὸ μαρτύριον 1 Tim. ii. 6), or may attempt to get over a difficulty by inversions and other changes. Thus the μυστήριον spoken of by St. Paul 1 Cor. xv. 51, which rightly stands in the received text πάντες μὲν οὐ κοιμηθησόμεθα, πάντες δὲ ἀλλαγησόμεθα, was easily varied into πάντες κοιμηθησόμεθα, οὐ π. δὲ ἀλ., as if in mere perplexity. From this source must arise the omission in a few manuscripts of υἱοῦ Βαραχίου in Matt. xxiii. 35; of Ἱερεμίου in Matt. xxvii. 9; the insertion of ἄλλου ἐκ before θυσιαστηρίου in Apoc. xvi. 7; perhaps the substitution of τοῖς προφήταις for Ἡσαΐᾳ τῷ προφήτῃ in Mark i. 2, of οὔπω ἀναβαίνω for οὐκ ἀναβαίνω in John vii. 8, and certainly of τρίτη for ἕκτε in John xix. 14. The variations between Γεργεσηνῶν and Γαδαρηνῶν Matt. viii. 28, and between Βηθαβαρᾶ and Βηθανίᾳ John i. 28, have been attributed, we hope and believe unjustly, to the misplaced conjectures of Origen.
Some would impute such readings as ἔχωμεν for ἔχομεν Rom. v. 1; φορέσμεν for φορέσομεν 1 Cor. xv. 49, to a desire on the part of copyists to improve an assertion into an ethical exhortation, especially in the Apostolical Epistles; but it is at once safer and more simple to regard them with Bishop Chr. Wordsworth (N. T. 1 Cor. xv. 49) as instances of itacism : see class (7) above.
(20) Finally, whatever conclusion we arrive at respecting the true reading in the following passages, the discrepancy could hardly have arisen except from doctrinal preconceptions. Matt. xix. 17 Τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν? οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς εἰ μὴ εἶς, ὁ Θεός; or Τί με ἐρωτᾷς περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ? εἶς ἐστὶν ὁ ἀγαθός: John i. 18 ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός or μονογενὴς Θεός: Acts xvi. 7 τὸ πνεῦμα with or without the addition of Ἰησοῦ: Acts xx. 28 τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Θεοῦ or τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ Κυρίου: perhaps also Jude ver. 4 δεσπότην with or without Θεόν. I do not mention Mark xiii. 32 οὐδὲ ὁ υἱός, as there is hardly any authority for its rejection now extant; nor Luke ii. 22, where τοῦ καθαρισμοῦ αὐτῆς of the Complutensian Polyglott and most of our common editions is supported by almost no evidence whatever.
11. It is very possible that some scattered readings cannot be reduced to any of the above-named classes, but enough has been said to afford the student a general notion of the nature and extent of the subject13. It may be reasonably thought that a portion of these variations, and those among the most considerable, had their origin in a cause which must have operated at least as much in ancient as in modern times, the changes gradually introduced after publication by the authors themselves into the various copies yet within their reach. Such revised copies would circulate independently of those issued previously, and now beyond the writer's control; and thus becoming the parents of a new family of copies, would originate and keep up diversities from the first edition, without any fault on the part of transcribers14. It is thus perhaps we may best account for the omission or insertion of whole paragraphs or verses in manuscripts of a certain class [see above (1), (2), (3)]; or, in cases where the work was in much request, for those minute touches and trifling improvements in words, in construction, in tone, or in the mere colouring of the style [(5), (11), (12)], which few authors can help attempting, when engaged on revising their favourite compositions. Even in the Old Testament, the song of David in 2 Sam. xxii is evidently an early draft of the more finished composition, Ps. xviii. Traces of the writer's curae secundae may possibly be found in John v. 3, 4; vii. 53-viii. 11; xiii. 26; Acts xx. 4, 15; xxiv. 6–8.