The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels | Page 4

Luke ix. 54-56. pp. 211-231
APPENDIX I.
Pericope de Adultera. pp. 233-265
APPENDIX II.
Dr. Hort's Theory of Conflation and the Neutral Text. pp. 266-286
Index of Subjects. pp. 287-288
Index of Passages of the New Testament Discussed. pp. 289-290

THE CAUSES OF THE CORRUPTION OF THE TRADITIONAL
TEXT OF THE HOLY GOSPELS.

INTRODUCTION.
In the companion volume to this, the Traditional Text, that is, the Text
of the Gospels which is the resultant of all the evidence faithfully and
exhaustively presented and estimated according to the best procedure of
the courts of law, has been traced back to the earliest ages in the
existence of those sacred writings. We have shewn, that on the one
hand, amidst the unprecedented advantages afforded by modern
conditions of life for collecting all the evidence bearing upon the
subject, the Traditional Text must be found, not in a mere transcript,
but in a laborious revision of the Received Text; and that on the other

hand it must, as far as we can judge, differ but slightly from the Text
now generally in vogue, which has been generally received during the
last two and a half centuries.
The strength of the position of the Traditional Text lies in its being
logically deducible and to be deduced from all the varied evidence
which the case supplies, when it has been sifted, proved, passed,
weighed, compared, compounded, and contrasted with dissentient
testimony. The contrast is indeed great in almost all instances upon
which controversy has gathered. On one side the vast mass of
authorities is assembled: on the other stands a small group. Not
inconsiderable is the advantage possessed by that group, as regards
numerous students who do not look beneath the surface, in the general
witness in their favour borne by the two oldest MSS. of the Gospels in
existence. That advantage however shrinks into nothing under the light
of rigid examination. The claim for the Text in them made at the
Semiarian period was rejected when Semiarianism in all its phases fell
into permanent disfavour. And the argument advanced by Dr. Hort that
the Traditional Text was a new Text formed by successive recensions
has been refuted upon examination of the verdict of the Fathers in the
first four centuries, and of the early Syriac and Latin Versions. Besides
all this, those two manuscripts have been traced to a local source in the
library of Caesarea. And on the other hand a Catholic origin of the
Traditional Text found on later vellum manuscripts has been
discovered in the manuscripts of papyrus which existed all over the
Roman Empire, unless it was in Asia, and were to some degree in use
even as late as the ninth century; before and during the employment of
vellum in the Caesarean school, and in localities where it was used in
imitation of the mode of writing books which was brought well-nigh to
perfection in that city.
It is evident that the turning-point of the controversy between ourselves
and the Neologian school must lie in the centuries before St.
Chrysostom. If, as Dr. Hort maintains, the Traditional Text not only
gained supremacy at that era but did not exist in the early ages, then our
contention is vain. That Text can be Traditional only if it goes back
without break or intermission to the original autographs, because if

through break or intermission it ceased or failed to exist, it loses the
essential feature of genuine tradition. On the other hand, if it is proved
to reach back in unbroken line to the time of the Evangelists, or to a
period as near to them as surviving testimony can prove, then Dr. Hort's
theory of a 'Syrian' text formed by recension or otherwise just as
evidently falls to the ground. Following mainly upon the lines drawn by
Dean Burgon, though in a divergence of my own devising, I claim to
have proved Dr. Hort to have been conspicuously wrong, and our
maintenance of the Traditional Text in unbroken succession to be
eminently right. The school opposed to us must disprove our arguments,
not by discrediting the testimony of the Fathers to whom all Textual
Critics have appealed including Dr. Hort, but by demonstrating if they
can that the Traditional Text is not recognized by them, or they must
yield eventually to us[1].
In this volume, the other half of the subject will be discussed. Instead
of exploring the genuine Text, we shall treat of the corruptions of it,
and shall track error in its ten thousand forms to a few sources or heads.
The origination of the pure Text in the inspired writings of the
Evangelists will thus be vindicated anew by the evident paternity of
deflections from it discoverable in the natural defects or iniquities of
men. Corruption will