The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels

The Causes of the Corruption of
the
by John Burgon

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Title: The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy
Gospels Being the Sequel to The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels
Author: John Burgon
Editor: Edward Miller
Release Date: April 16, 2007 [EBook #21112]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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CORRUPTION OF THE GOSPELS ***

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THE CAUSES OF THE CORRUPTION OF THE TRADITIONAL
TEXT OF THE HOLY GOSPELS
BEING THE SEQUEL TO THE TRADITIONAL TEXT OF THE HOLY
GOSPELS
BY THE LATE
JOHN WILLIAM BURGON, B. D.
DEAN OF CHICHESTER
ARRANGED, COMPLETED, AND EDITED BY
EDWARD MILLER, M. A.
WYKEHAMICAL PREBENDARY OF CHICHESTER
LONDON GEORGE BELL AND SONS
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL AND CO.
1896.
'Tenet ecclesia nostra, tenuitque semper firmam illam et immotam
Tertulliani regulam "Id verius quod prius, id prius quod ab initio." Quo
propius ad veritatis fontem accedimus, eo purior decurrit Catholicae
doctrinae rivus.'
Cave's Proleg. p. xliv.
'Interrogate de semitis antiquis quae sit via bona, et ambulate in
ea.'--Jerem. vi. 16.
'In summa, si constat id verius quod prius, id prius quod ab initio, id ab
initio quod ab Apostolis; pariter utique constabit, id esse ab Apostolis
traditum, quod apud Ecclesias Apostolorum fuerit
sacrosanctum.'--Tertull. adv. Marc. l. iv. c. 5.

PREFACE
The reception given by the learned world to the First Volume of this
work, as expressed hitherto in smaller reviews and notices, has on the
whole been decidedly far from discouraging. All have had some word
of encomium on our efforts. Many have accorded praise and signified
their agreement, sometimes with unquestionable ability. Some have
pronounced adverse opinions with considerable candour and courtesy.
Others in opposing have employed arguments so weak and even
irrelevant to the real question at issue, as to suggest that there is not
after all so much as I anticipated to advance against our case. Longer
examinations of this important matter are doubtless impending, with all
the interest attaching to them and the judgements involved: but I beg
now to offer my acknowledgements for all the words of encouragement
that have been uttered.
Something however must be said in reply to an attack made in the
Guardian newspaper on May 20, because it represents in the main the
position occupied by some members of an existing School. I do not
linger over an offhand stricture upon my 'adhesion to the extravagant
claim of a second-century origin for the Peshitto,' because I am content
with the companionship of some of the very first Syriac scholars, and
with the teaching given in an unanswered article in the Church
Quarterly Review for April, 1895. Nor except in passing do I remark
upon a fanciful censure of my account of the use of papyrus in MSS.
before the tenth century--as to which the reviewer is evidently not
versed in information recently collected, and described for example in
Sir E. Maunde Thompson's Greek and Latin Palaeography, or in Mr. F.
G. Kenyon's Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, and in an article
in the just mentioned Review which appeared in October, 1894. These
observations and a large number of inaccuracies shew that he was at the
least not posted up to date. But what will be thought, when attention is
drawn to the fact that in a question whether a singular set of quotations
from the early Fathers refer to a passage in St. Matthew or the parallel
one in St. Luke, the peculiar characteristic of St. Matthew--'them that
persecute you'--is put out of sight, and both passages (taking the

lengthened reading of St. Matthew) are represented as having equally
only four clauses? And again, when quotations going on to the
succeeding verse in St. Matthew (v. 45) are stated dogmatically to have
been wrongly referred by me to that Evangelist? But as to the details of
this point in dispute, I beg to refer our readers to pp. 144-153 of the
present volume. The reviewer appears also to be entirely unacquainted
with the history of the phrase [Greek: monogenês Theos] in St. John i.
18, which, as may be read on pp. 215-218, was introduced by heretics
and harmonized with Arian tenets, and was rejected on the other side.
That some orthodox churchmen fell into the trap, and like those who in
these