HKB
from the same corrupt common ancestor; whereby the supposed two independent witnesses to the Evangelic verity become resolved into a single witness to a fabricated text of the IIIrd century.
It is impossible in the meantime to withhold from these learned and excellent men (who are infinitely better than their theory) the tribute of our sympathy and concern at the evident perplexity and constant distress to which their own fatal major premiss has reduced them. The Nemesis of Superstition and Idolatry is ever the same. Doubt,—unbelief,—credulity,—general mistrust of all evidence, is the inevitable sequel and penalty. In 1870, Drs. Westcott and Hort solemnly assured their brother Revisionists that “the prevalent assumption, that throughout the N. T. the true text is to be found somewhere among recorded readings, does not stand the test of experience;”[P. xxi.] and they are evidently still haunted by the same spectral suspicion. They see a ghost to be exorcised in every dark corner. “The Art of Conjectural Emendation” (says Dr. Hort) “depends for its success so much on personal endowments, fertility of resource in the first instance, and even more an appreciation of language too delicate to acquiesce in merely plausible corrections, that it is easy to forget its true character as a critical operation founded on knowledge and method.”[Introd. p. 71.] Specimens of the writer’s skill in this department abound. One occurs at p. 135 (App.) where, in defiance of every known document, he seeks to evacuate S. Paul’s memorable injunction to Timothy (2 Tim. i. 13) of all its significance. [A fuller exposure of Dr. Hort’s handling of this important text will be found later in the present volume.] May we be allowed to assure the accomplished writer that IN BIBLICAL TEXTUAL CRITICISM, “CONJECTURAL EMENDATION” HAS NO PLACE?
71 Scrivener, Introduction, p. 453.—Stunica, it will be remembered, was the chief editor of the Complutensian, or first printed edition of the New Testament, (1514).
72 προσέφορον αὐτῷ,—S. Matt. ix. 2.
73 Scrivener, Plain Introd. p. 472.
74 The words omitted are therefore the following 22:—ἡμῶν, ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς ... γενηθήτω τὸ θελημά σου, ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ, καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ... ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.
_ 76 The last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to S. Mark, vindicated against recent critical Objectors and established_, by the Rev. J. W. Burgon,—pp. 334, published by Parker, Oxford, 1871.
77 As Dr. Jacobson and Dr. Chr. Wordsworth,—the learned Bishops of Chester and Lincoln. It is right to state that Bp. Ellicott “considers the passage doubtful.” (On Revision, p. 36.) Dr. Scrivener (it is well known) differs entirely from Bp. Ellicott on this important point.
79 τὰς ἀληθεῖς ῥήσεις Πνεύματος τοῦ Ἁγίου.—Clemens Rom., c. 45.
80 Should the Revised New Testament be authorized?*—p. 42.
81 Revised Version of the first three Gospels, considered,*—by Canon Cook,—pp. 221-2.
82 At p. 34 of his pamphlet in reply to the first two of the present Articles.
83 On Revision*, pp. 30 and 49.
84 Words of the N. T.* p. 193.
85 Companion to the Revised Version*, p. 63.
86 Ibid.* p. 62.
87 Viz. Eusebius,—Macarius Magnes,—Aphraates,—Didymus,—the Syriac Acts of the App.,—Epiphanius,—Ambrose,—Chrysostom,—Jerome,—Augustine. It happens that the disputation of Macarius Magnes (A.D. 300-350) with a heathen philosopher, which has recently come to light, contains an elaborate discussion of S. Mark xvi. 17, 18. Add the curious story related by the author of the Paschal Chronicle (A.D. 628) concerning Leontius, Bishop of Antioch (A.D. 348),—p. 289. This has been hitherto overlooked.
88 Scrivener’s Introduction, p. 515.
89 Tisch. specifies 7 Latin copies. Origen (iii. 946 f.), Jerome (vii. 282), and Leo (ap. Sabatier) are the only patristic quotations discoverable.
90 i. 459
91 i. 374; ii. 714; iv. 15.
92 vii. 47; viii. 13.
94 i. 180, 385.