43. Only a summary of the evidence is given in Trad. Text, detailed references being promised in Causes of Corruption. In the summary, 6 names appear as supporting ro?s rpog.: Titus of Bostra, Origen, Porphyry, Ivenzeus (p. 205), Eusebius, Am- brose. 7 names appear on the other side: Ireneus (p. 191), Origen (Cels. ii. 4; in Joan. i. 14), Titus of Bostra (adv. Manich. iii. 4), Basil (adv. Eunom. ii, 15), Serapion, Victorinus of Pettau (in Apoc. Joh.), Epiphanius (twice over—the second time with a ref. adv. Her. 11. i. 51). When we come to Causes of Corruption we are met by a statement that Tischendorf quotes 13 Fathers against the Tradi- tional reading : Irenzeus, Origen, Porphyry, Titus, Basil, Serapion, Epiphanius, Severianus, Victor, Eusebius, Victorinus, Jerome, Augustine. We are then told that ‘from this list serious deductions must be made. Irenzeus and Victor of Antioch are clearly with the Textus Receptus. Serapion, Titus, and Basil do but borrow from Origen, and with his argument reproduce his corrupt text of Mk 1%... Victorinus and Augustine, being Latin writers, merely quote the ‘Latin version, which is without variety of reading. There re- main Origen (the faulty character of whose codices has been remarked upon already), Por- phyry the heretic (who wrote a book to convict the Evangelists of mis-statements, and who is there- fore scarcely a trustworthy witness), Eusebius, Jerome, and Severianus. Of these, Eusebius and Jerome deliver it as their opinion that the name of “Isaiah” had obtained admission into the text through the inadvertency of copyists. Is it reason- able, on the slender residuum of evidence, to insist that St. Mark has ascribed to Isaiah words
TEXTUAL CRITICISM (OF NT)
confessedly written by Malachi?’ The passage concludes with a lecture on the duty of ‘careful- ness’ and ‘ honesty.’
44, If, in the light of this statement, we come back to the summary in Zrad. Lext, the result is startling. Of the 6 names quoted on behalf of the TR, the evidence of the first 3 in favour of the rival reading is discussed and discounted. But no hint 1s given of any justification for the appearance of their names on the opposite side. Of the other 3, Ambrose is left unnoticed 3 Irenus, whose name appeared in the summary, like the names of Origen and Titus, on both sides, is boldly claimed exclu- sively for the TR. Of Eusebius we gather that he is usually quoted in favour of the opposite side, but that he felt the difficulty of that reading so much that he regarded the text as corrupt. (It is difficult to see how he could have failed to refer to a difference of reading among MSS on the point had he been conscious that any such difference existed). A reference to the Latin version of Irenzus is rather a ‘slender residuum’ from the original 6, even when supplemented by a claim to Victor of Antioch, whose date no doubt excluded his name from the summary. This result, we may notice in passing, does not inspire confidence in the accuracy of the summary, or in the con- clusions built on it. But that is not the point immediately before us.* We must turn to a closer examination of the details of the evidence in the light of Dean Burgon’s comments upon them.
45. The earliest witness is Irenzeus. Three pas- sages in his writings (pp. 187, 191, 205) come up for consideration. Two (pp. 187, 205) are extant only in Latin ; but, as Grabe showed (see note in Stieren), there is no reason to question the accuracy of the translation. The reading ‘in prophetis,’ for which they vouch, cannot have come in through the Latin version, and it is, besides, strongly, though not quite conclusively, confirmed by the context (p. 205). The passage on p. 191 is, fortunately, extant both in Greek and Latin. The Latin reads ‘in Esaia propheta’ with no recorded variant. The Greek is attested in various ways. It is found in an extract from Irenzeus preserved by Anastasius
* Mr. Miller’s 30 passages are meant to supply materials for comparison between the Patristic evidence to be derived from writers who died before a.p. 400 to the Traditional and the *Neologian’ texts respectively. It is impossible to discover the
. principle which underlies this selection. He professes to choose passages in which ‘evidence is borne on both sides.’ But in 8 out of the 30 he can find no Patristic evidence on the ‘Neo- logian’ side. ¢ ‘
The selection is certainly not regulated by any consideration of the distribution of MS authority. 24 out of the 30 are sup- ported by one or more members of the group NBODL. Nor, again, is any care taken to choose passages where the Patristic evidence is free from the uncertainty caused by the presence of Synoptic parallels. The only element common to all the 30 is that they are printed in thick type by Scrivener in the Cam- bridge Greek Testament, t.c. each of them has, at one time, been adopted by one or more of the critical editions collated at the foot of Scrivener’s pages. i 4 :
It is equally difficult to see the bearing of this evidence on the point at issue. It is true that at the beginning of the chapter a vague reference is made (p. 95) to a statement of Dr. Hort’s, and it is assumed at the end that his contentions have been shown to be baseless. But we are left to divine, as best we may, how the collection of reff., reaching to the end of the 4th cent., relating to readings four-fifths of which are ob- viously not distinctively Syrian, affects Dr. Hort’s position that there are no historical signs of the existence of distinctively Syrian readings before the middle of the 8rd cent. There is no excuse for this flagrant ignoratio elenchi. Dr. Hort’s position was precisely formulated in words which called special attention to the fundamental importance of the fact. which he claimed to have observed. The passage reads as follows (nt. § 162): ‘Before the middle of the third century, at the very earliest, we have no historical signs of the existence of readings, conflate or other, that are marked as distinctively Syrian by the want of attestation from groups of documents which have preserved the other ancient forms of text. This is a fact of great significance, ascertained as it is exclusively by external evi- dence, and therefore supplying an absolutely independent verifi- cation and extension of the results already obtained by com- parison of the internal character of readings as classified by conflation,’