The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels | Page 7

details is still more commended by his interesting style of writing. As far as has been possible, I have let him in the sequel, except for such clerical corrections as were required from time to time and have been much fewer than his facile pen would have made, speak entirely for himself.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It must be always borne in mind, that it is not enough for the purpose of the other side to shew that the Traditional Text was in a minority as regards attestation. They must prove that it was nowhere in the earliest ages, if they are to establish their position that it was made in the third and fourth centuries. Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, p. 95.
[2] 'A hydra in her direful shape, With fifty darkling throats agape.'--
Altered from Conington's version, Aen. vi. 576.
[3] 'How oft soe'er the truth she tell, What's false and wrong she loves too well.'--
Altered from Conington, Aen. iv. 188.
[4] Strabo, xvi, enumerates amongst its inhabitants Egyptians, Arabians, and Phoenicians.
[5] Studia Biblica, i. 50-55. Dr. Neubauer, On the Dialects spoken in Palestine in the time of Christ.
[6] Isaac Williams, On the Study of the Gospels, 341-352.
[7] My devoted Syrian friend, Miss Helanie Baroody, told me during her stay in England that a village is pointed out as having been traversed by our Lord on His way from Caesarea Philippi to Mount Hermon.
[8] It is hardly improbable that these two eminent Christians were some of those whom St Paul found at Antioch when St. Barnabas brought him there, and thus came to know intimately as fellow-workers ([Greek: episêmoi en tois apostolois, oi kai pro emou gegonasin en Christ?]). Most of the names in Rom. xvi are either Greek or Hebrew.
[9] 'Jam pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes Et linguam et mores ... vexit.'
--Juv. Sat. iii. 62-3.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL CORRUPTION.
§ 1.
We hear sometimes scholars complain, and with a certain show of reason, that it is discreditable to us as a Church not to have long since put forth by authority a revised Greek Text of the New Testament. The chief writers of antiquity, say they, have been of late years re-edited by the aid of the best Manuscripts. Why should not the Scriptures enjoy the same advantage? Men who so speak evidently misunderstand the question. They assume that the case of the Scriptures and that of other ancient writings are similar.
Such remonstrances are commonly followed up by statements like the following:--That the received Text is that of Erasmus:--that it was constructed in haste, and without skill:--that it is based on a very few, and those bad Manuscripts:--that it belongs to an age when scarcely any of our present critical helps were available, and when the Science of Textual Criticism was unknown. To listen to these advocates for Revision, you would almost suppose that it fared with the Gospel at this instant as it had fared with the original Copy of the Law for many years until the days of King Josiah[10].
Yielding to no one in my desire to see the Greek of the New Testament judiciously revised, I freely avow that recent events have convinced me, and I suppose they have convinced the public also, that we have not among us the men to conduct such an undertaking. Better a thousand times in my judgement to leave things as they are, than to risk having the stamp of authority set upon such an unfortunate production as that which appeared on the 17th May, 1881, and which claims at this instant to represent the combined learning of the Church, the chief Sects, and the Socinian[11] body.
Now if the meaning of those who desire to see the commonly received text of the New Testament made absolutely faultless, were something of this kind:--That they are impatient for the collation of the copies which have become known to us within the last two centuries, and which amount already in all to upwards of three thousand: that they are bent on procuring that the ancient Versions shall be re-edited;--and would hail with delight the announcement that a band of scholars had combined to index every place of Scripture quoted by any of the Fathers:--if this were meant, we should all be entirely at one; especially if we could further gather from the programme that a fixed intention was cherished of abiding by the result of such an appeal to ancient evidence. But unfortunately something entirely different is in contemplation.
Now I am bent on calling attention to certain features of the problem which have very generally escaped attention. It does not seem to be understood that the Scriptures of the New Testament stand on an entirely different footing from every other ancient writing which can be named. A few plain remarks ought to bring this fact, for a fact it is, home