IT is often forgotten that the ancients did not wear spectacles, and that, therefore, the profession of scribe must have been proportionately more trying to the eyes. Now one of the commonest defects of eyesight is "astigmatism," as a result of which lines drawn in one direction appear much fainter than lines drawn in another. This, obviously, would tend to make it easy to confuse one letter with another; but a confusion easy to one scribe would not affect another. Again, any weakening of the power of concentration renders it easy to make an error of position and so to pass from a word in one line to a similar word in a line below. Omissions of lines from this cause are technically described as due to HOMOIOTELEUTON literally "like end," though as a matter of fact omission from this cause quite as often takes place in the middle of a line as when the identical letters stand at the end of a line. Evidence of this can be found in ancient MSS. It may not be irrelevant to remark that in a typewritten copy of one chapter of this book I found no less than three cases of omission, two of one and one of two lines, occurring from the eye of the typist passing about two-thirds from the beginning of a line to similar words in a lower line. Besides this, we must remember that between reading the exemplar and writing there is always a short interval during which the invincible tendency of the human mind to modify anything it apprehends has time to operate, especially if the attention of the scribe wanders or if he has not had special training. At the present day the difference between the standard of accuracy of one copyist and another, especially in the matter of omitting or misreading individual words, varies immensely. But absolute accuracy is an ideal never attained over a long piece of writing.
It will be worthwhile to consider briefly how mistakes, other than intentional additions or corrections, most naturally occur.
(1) VARIATIONS IN THE RELATIVE ORDER OF WORDS in a sentence in different MSS. are very common. Alterations of order would originate in this way: a scribe accidentally omits a word; if he notices it before he has finished writing the next word, he puts it in himself, sometimes as a marginal or overline correction, but sometimes, in order to avoid an unsightly mess, at the next place in the sentence where it makes sense. This latter alternative was especially attractive to a Greek scribe, since in that language, much more easily than in English, the order of the words in a sentence can be rearranged without materially altering the meaning. If the original scribe does not notice an omission, a corrector puts it in the margin. In that case the next copyist may easily insert it in the text in the wrong place —this is one of the commonest mistakes in MSS.
(2) MARGINAL NOTES, sometimes consisting of various readings derived from another MS., often led to corruption, through something being copied into the text by a scribe who supposed what he saw in the margin to be words accidentally omitted.
(3) Another frequent phenomenon is the SUBSTITUTION OF
SYNONYMS.
We can see at least four ways in which this might arise,
(a) The attention of the scribe may wander in the interval between reading
and writing and he may reproduce the SENSE rather
than the actual words of his model,
(b) He may OMIT A WORD, or at some subsequent time
a drop of water or a flaw in the papyrus may cause it to be obliterated.
The next copyist will have to make a guess at the missing word.
For example, in Mt.xxvii.4 the sense requires a word meaning "innocent" to
follow αἷμα; suppose
the original text had δίκαιον,
the reading of L, but that in some early copy the
word was omitted; the owner makes a guess at the "missing word," and ἀθῷον,
the reading of B א etc., is the result.
א B
L versus ἀγαπητός D
Byz.]
(c) Occasionally we come across cases where it looks as if a literary word
has been deliberately substituted for a SLANG one in order to improve the style.
(4) In the Gospels, the commonest of all corruptions is the result of ASSIMILATION. This occurs when a word or phrase in the original text has been replaced by one which occurs in the parallel passage in another Gospel.
(5) Many variations consist in the SUBSTITUTION OF A PARTICIPLE FOR καὶ with a finite verb, or the use of different prepositions, conjunctions, or particles. These may be due to any of the above-mentioned causes—wandering attention between the moment of reading and writing, omission and subsequent correction, influence of the recollection of parallels in another Gospel, or the attempt, unconscious or deliberate, to improve grammar or style.
In the earliest period of all so the phenomena of the Western text especially suggest scribes seem occasionally to have attempted quasi-editorial improvements similar to, but much slighter than, those which Matthew and Luke make in reproducing Mark.
In order to illustrate the exact nature of the problem we have to deal with,
I set out and discuss briefly the readings of the leading MSS. in three passages
in Luke.
| Lk.viii.9, "what this parable might be?" | |
|---|---|
| Τίς αὕτη εἴη παραβολή | B 579 |
| Τίς αὕτη ἡ παραβολή | א W 33 700 |
| Τίς εἴη αὕτη ἡ παραβολή | 1 &c. |
| Τίς αὕτη ἡ παραβολή | L Ξ |
| Τίς εἴη ἡ παραβολή αὕτη | A D Θ Ψ |
| Τίς ἡ παραβολή | Γ |
| Περι τίς παραβολή | R |
The seven readings quoted above present an unusually complicated instance
of diversity in order; they also illustrate two other points,
(a) Remembering that all the older MSS.
WERE WRITTEN IN CAPITALS,
WITHNODIVISIONBETWEENTHEWORDS
AND WITHOUT `ACCENTS OR 'BREATHINGS,
we see that difference between the first two of the list depends on the letter
H (= η) being written once or twice
before παραβολή.
If א is right, the error of B is
that technically known as HAPLOGRAPHY (i.e. writing
only once what should be repeated twice);
if B is right, א is
guilty of DITTOGRAPHY or mistaken repetition,
(b) The reading of R is particularly instructive.
The probable explanation is that Τίςαὕτηεἴηἡ had
formed a complete line in an ancestor which had accidentally been omitted
in the exemplar copied by R. (MSS. exist with eleven
letters to the line).
Something had to be done to make grammar and sense of the nominative παραβολή left
without a construction.
The scribe makes the obvious guess περιτίςπαραβολή.
Note that the differences between the first six variants cannot possibly
be reproduced in English.
| Lk.xi.10, "It is (or "shall be") opened." | |
|---|---|
ἀνοίγεται |
B D |
ἀνοιγήσεται |
א C L |
ἀνοιχθήσεται |
A E etc. |
ἀνηχθήσεται |
W |
The first three variants illustrate to tendency towards grammatical improvement; the fourth is probably the defective eyesight of the scribe of this MS. or its ancestor, or possibly, if the scribe wrote from dictation, to an error of hearing.
| Lk.ix.10. | |
|---|---|
Πόλιν καλουμένην Βηθσαϊδά |
B L 33 etc. |
Κώμην καλουμένην Βηθσαϊδά |
D |
Κώμην καλουμένην Βηθσαϊδάν‧ εἰς τόπον ἔρημον |
Θ |
Τόπον καλούμενον Βηθσαϊδά |
Ψ |
Τόπον ἔρημον |
א 157 Syr.C. |
ἔρημον τόπον |
69 |
Τόπον πόλεως καλουμένης Βηθσαϊδάν |
1 & c. 700 |
Τόπον πόλεως καλουμένης Βηθσαϊδάν |
A W and Byzantine |
The whole clause καὶ παραγαβὼν ... Βηθσαϊδά. |
Om. 579 |
This is an exceptionally complicated, and also an exceptionally instructive, set of variants; since, in spite of the bewildering diversity of attestation, we can by the application of sound principles of criticism ascertain with practical certainty what Luke originally wrote. The apparently hopeless confusion begins to disappear the moment we glance at a Synopsis of the Gospels and note that in Matthew (xiv.13) and Mark (vi.12) ἔρημοντόπον "a desert place" takes the place of "city called" or "village named, Bethsaida." We conclude that the reading τόπονἔρημον may be dismissed as due to "assimilation" of the text of Luke to that of the other Gospels. It follows that all the readings that contain the word τόπον represent attempts of scribes or editors to combine the readings of two MSS., one containing τόπονἔρημον, the other a reading mentioning a city or village Bethsaida. We are thus left to choose between the first three readings that give the name Bethsaida.
| Πόλιν καλουμένην Βηθσαϊδά | B |
| Κώμην καλουμένην Βηθσαϊδάν | Θ |
| Κώμην λεγομένην Βηθσαϊδά | D |
Here we have a double instance of SUBSTITUTION OF SYNONYMS. It would be most simply explained on the hypothesis that the text presupposed by Θ is original, while κώμην was changed to πόλιν in one local text, and καλουμένην to λεγομένην in another.
This conclusion is shown to be one of high probability by "internal" considerations. Bethsaida is classed among "cities," Mt.xi.21 =Lk.x.13; a scribe, therefore, who wished to replace an original κώμην that had fallen out, or to emend the text, would inevitably conjecture πόλιν. On the other hand, the context makes it extremely unlikely that Luke wrote πόλιν. "He took them and withdrew apart (κατ'ἰδίαν) into a ... called Bethsaida." One does not retire for privacy to a "city"; but one may do so to a country village. Again, two verses later the disciples say, "Send the multitude away that they may go into the villages and country round about and lodge, and get victuals: for we are here in a desert place." But this would be absurd language to use if they were anywhere near a "city." Again, there can be no reasonable doubt that Luke wrote καλουμένην and not λεγομένην. The word καλουμένος to introduce a name or appellation is used 11 times in his Gospel; but it does not occur at all in the other Gospels. On the other hand, λεγομένος, in this usage, while it occurs 13 times in Matthew, is only twice found in Luke (x.1 and 47), and the second of these two cases is doubtful, since D Old Lat. 1 157 support the alternative reading καλουμένος.
There remains to make our choice between the form Βηθσαϊδά B D Old Lat. and Βηθσαϊδάν Θ A and the Byzantine text. Every time the name occurs in the Gospels there is a variation in the MSS. But we note that B, where the name occurs in Matthew and Mark, uses the form with the final ν, but in Luke, B, both here and in Lk.x.13, has the form without the ν. But א has the final ν not only in Mark but in Lk.x.13. Now, since the tendency of scribes is towards ASSIMILATION, a reading, which makes the Gospels differ, is the one more likely to be original. But Θ has the form with ν here, and in Lk.x.13 א is supported by 1 &c., 13 &c., 28, 700 etc. This shows that the reading with ν must have arisen long before the date of writing of n. We conclude, then, that Βηθσαϊδά ν is the true reading, but that Βηθσαϊδά is a very ancient variant. Not only that; from the fact that it is preferred elsewhere in Luke by א we may reasonably conjecture that it stood in the text of א in Lk.ix.10 before the words κώμην (or πόλιν) καλουμένην Βηθσαϊδάν were turned out to be replaced by τόπον ἔρημον from the other Gospels. Here, surely, we are on the track of the explanation of this assimilation in א of the text of Luke to Matthew, (κατ') ἰδιαν ... (Βηθσα)ιδαν is a combination of letters which invited omission by HOMOIOTELEUTON. The intervening words amounting to 26 letters, i.e. probably two lines, were omitted in a remote ancestor of א; then, in order to make sense, the words Τόπον ἔρημον were conjecturally inserted from the parallel passage Mt.xiv.13. The fact that 579 has actually omitted this very passage (only beginning the omission six words earlier)—apparently through HOMOIOTELEUTON on between (ἐποίησ)αν and (Βηθσαιδ)αν — shows the plausibility of this explanation of the apparently drastic alteration of the text made by א, a MS. which as a rule is usually exceptionally free from corruption by assimilation to parallels in other Gospels.
Between them the three passages of Luke above discussed exhibit the main
influences which resulted in the production of variants in the text.
And since they are influences which would operate in every locality, but
in regard to a different set of readings in every locality, in the course
of time they would inevitably give rise to local texts differing from one
another very little in regard to readings materially affecting the sense,
but very considerably in minute points.
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