HKB
an instance of depravation of Scripture resulting from the practice of ASSIMILATION, which prevailed anciently to an extent which baffles arithmetic. We choose the most famous instance that presents itself.
(a) It occurs in S. Mark vi. 20, and is more than unsuspected. The substitution (on the authority of א B L and the Coptic) of ἠπόρει for ἐποίει in that verse, (i.e. the statement that Herod “was much perplexed,”—instead of Herod “did many things,”) is even vaunted by the Critics as the recovery of the true reading of the place—long obscured by the “very singular expression” ἐποίει. To ourselves the only “very singular” thing is, how men of first-rate ability can fail to see that, on the contrary, the proposed substitute is simply fatal to the SPIRIT’S teaching in this place. “Common sense is staggered by such a rendering,” (remarks the learned Bishop of Lincoln). “People are not wont to hear gladly* those by whom they are *much perplexed.”(171) But in fact, the sacred writer’s object clearly is, to record the striking circumstance that Herod was so moved by the discourses of John, (whom he used to “listen to with pleasure,”) that he even “did many things” (πολλὰ ἐποίει) in conformity with the Baptist’s teaching.(172)... And yet, if this be so, how (we shall be asked) has “he was much perplexed” (πολλὰ ἠπόρει) contrived to effect a lodgment in so many as three copies of the second Gospel?
It has resulted from nothing else, we reply, but the determination to assimilate a statement of S. Mark (vi. 20) concerning Herod and John the Baptist, with another and a distinct statement of S. Luke (ix. 7), having reference to Herod and our LORD. S. Luke, speaking of the fame of our SAVIOUR’S miracles at a period subsequent to the Baptist’s murder, declares that when Herod “heard all things that were done BY HIM” (ἤκουσε τὰ γινόμενα ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ πάντα), “he was much perplexed” (διηπόρει).—Statements so entirely distinct and diverse from one another as this of S. Luke, and that (given above) of S. Mark, might surely (one would think) have been let alone. On the contrary. A glance at the foot of the page will show that in the IInd century S. Mark’s words were solicited in all sorts of ways. A persistent determination existed to make him say that Herod having “heard of *many things which *THE BAPTIST_ did_,” &c.(173)—a strange perversion of the Evangelist’s meaning, truly, and only to be accounted for in one way.(174)