The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels | Page 5

the more shew itself in true colours:--
Quinquaginta atris immanis hiatibus hydra[2]:
and it will not so readily be mistaken for genuineness, when the real
history is unfolded, and the mistakes are accounted for. It seems clear
that corruption arose in the very earliest age. As soon as the Gospel was
preached, the incapacity of human nature for preserving accuracy until
long years of intimate acquaintance have bred familiarity must have
asserted itself in constant distortion more or less of the sacred stories,
as they were told and retold amongst Christians one to another whether
in writing or in oral transmission. Mistakes would inevitably arise from
the universal tendency to mix error with truth which Virgil has so
powerfully depicted in his description of 'Fame':--
Tam ficti pravique tenax, quam nuntia veri[3].

And as soon as inaccuracy had done its baleful work, a spirit of
infidelity and of hostility either to the essentials or the details of the
new religion must have impelled such as were either imperfect
Christians, or no Christians at all, to corrupt the sacred stories.
Thus it appears that errors crept in at the very first commencement of
the life of the Church. This is a matter so interesting and so important
in the history of corruption, that I must venture to place it again before
our readers.
Why was Galilee chosen before Judea and Jerusalem as the chief scene
of our Lord's Life and Ministry, at least as regards the time spent there?
Partly, no doubt, because the Galileans were more likely than the other
inhabitants of Palestine to receive Him. But there was as I venture to
think also another very special reason.
'Galilee of the nations' or 'the Gentiles,' not only had a mixed
population[4] and a provincial dialect[5], but lay contiguous to the rest
of Palestine on the one side, and on others to two districts in which
Greek was largely spoken, namely, Decapolis and the parts of Tyre and
Sidon, and also to the large country of Syria. Our Lord laid foundations
for a natural growth in these parts of the Christian religion after His
death almost independent as it seems of the centre of the Church at
Jerusalem. Hence His crossings of the lake, His miracles on the other
side, His retirement in that little understood episode in His life when
He shrank from persecution[6], and remained secretly in the parts of
Tyre and Sidon, about the coasts of Decapolis, on the shores of the lake,
and in the towns of Caesarea Philippi, where the traces of His footsteps
are even now indicated by tradition[7]. His success amongst these
outlying populations is proved by the unique assemblage of the crowds
of 5000 and 4000 men besides women and children. What wonder then
if the Church sprang up at Damascus, and suddenly as if without notice
displayed such strength as to draw persecution upon it! In the same way
the Words of life appear to have passed throughout Syria over
congenial soil, and Antioch became the haven whence the first great
missionaries went out for the conversion of the world. Such were not
only St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. Barnabas, but also as is not

unreasonable to infer many of that assemblage of Christians at Rome
whom St. Paul enumerates to our surprise in the last chapter of his
Epistle to the Romans. Many no doubt were friends whom the Apostle
of the Gentiles had met in Greece and elsewhere: but there are reasons
to shew that some at least of them, such as Andronicus and Junias or
Junia[8] and Herodion, may probably have passed along the stream of
commerce that flowed between Antioch and Rome[9], and that this
interconnexion between the queen city of the empire and the emporium
of the East may in great measure account for the number of names well
known to the apostle, and for the then flourishing condition of the
Church which they adorned.
It has been shewn in our first volume that, as is well known to all
students of Textual Criticism, the chief amount of corruption is to be
found in what is termed the Western Text; and that the corruption of
the West is so closely akin to the corruption which is found in Syriac
remains, that practically they are included under one head of
classification. What is the reason of this phenomenon? It is evidently
derived from the close commercial alliance which subsisted between
Syria and Italy. That is to say, the corruption produced in Syria made
its way over into Italy, and there in many instances gathered fresh
contributions. For there is reason to suppose, that it first arose in Syria.
We have seen how the Church grew of itself there without regular
teaching from Jerusalem in the first beginnings, or