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

to have been at work from time to time, appears
to me to be most interesting to the inquirer into the hidden history of
the Text of the Gospels, because by revealing the influences which
have been at work it sheds light upon the entire controversy, and often
enables the student to see clearly how and why certain passages around
which dispute has gathered are really corrupt. Indeed, the vast and
mysterious ogre called corruption assumes shape and form under the
acute penetration and the deft handling of the Dean, whose great
knowledge of the subject and orderly treatment of puzzling 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 Christô]).
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