HKB
and the Philoxenian Syriac, the Armenian, Æthiopic, Slavonian and Georgian versions,—are with the traditional Text. (The Thebaic, the Gothic, and Cureton’s Syriac are defective here. The ancient Fathers are silent.)
IV. More serious in its consequences, however, than any other source of mischief which can be named, is the process of MUTILATION, to which, from the beginning, the Text of Scripture has been subjected. By the “Mutilation” of Scripture we do but mean the intentional Omission—from whatever cause proceeding—of genuine portions. And the causes of it have been numerous as well as diverse. Often, indeed, there seems to have been at work nothing else but a strange passion for getting rid of whatever portions of the inspired Text have seemed to anybody superfluous,—or at all events have appeared capable of being removed without manifest injury to the sense. But the estimate of the tasteless IInd-century Critic will never be that of the well-informed Reader, furnished with the ordinary instincts of piety and reverence. This barbarous mutilation of the Gospel, by the unceremonious excision of a multitude of little words, is often attended by no worse consequence than that thereby an extraordinary baldness is imparted to the Evangelical narrative. The removal of so many of the coupling-hooks is apt to cause the curtains of the Tabernacle to hang wondrous ungracefully; but often that is all. Sometimes, however, (as might have been confidently anticipated,) the result is calamitous in a high degree. Not only is the beauty of the narrative effectually marred, (as e.g. by the barbarous excision of καί—εὐθέως—μετὰ δακρύων—Κύριε, from S. Mark ix. 24):(175)—the doctrinal teaching of our SAVIOUR’S discourses in countless places, damaged, (as e.g. by the omission of καὶ νηστείᾳ from verse 29):—absurd expressions attributed to the Holy One which He certainly never uttered, (as e.g. by truncating of its last word the phrase τό, Εἰ δύνασαι πιστεῦσαι in verse 23):—but (I.) The narrative is often rendered in a manner unintelligible; or else (II.), The entire point of a precious incident is made to disappear from sight; or else (III.), An imaginary incident is fabricated: or lastly (IV.), Some precious saying of our Divine LORD is turned into absolute nonsense. Take a single short example of what has last been offered, from each of the Gospels in turn.
(I.) In S. Matthew xiv. 30, we are invited henceforth to submit to the information concerning Simon Peter, that “when he saw the wind, he was afraid.” The sight must have been peculiar, certainly. So, indeed, is the expression. But Simon Peter was as unconscious of the one as S. Matthew of the other. Such curiosities are the peculiar property of codices א B—the Coptic version—and the Revisionists. The predicate of the proposition (viz. “that it was strong,” contained in the single word ἰσχυρόν) has been wantonly excised. That is all!—although Dr. Hort succeeded in persuading his colleagues to the contrary. A more solemn—a far sadder instance, awaits us in the next Gospel.