WESTCOTT AND HORT'S NOMENCLATURE.

Have already intimated my belief that WH have been quite successful in refuting Burgon's and Miller's idea that the omissions of the Vatican MS. are to be accounted for by the suppositions that its transcriber was abnormally careless, that he was an Arian, or some other kind of heretic, and that his work was therefore in his own generation regarded as unfit for use. I believe, on the contrary, that its type of text had the approval of two of the best critics—Origen and Eusebius; that it is as old as the third century; and, if I cannot quite commit myself to Hort's opinion that its antiquity may be extended to the second, at least I do not venture to contradict it. But we are still a long way from the doctrine that this type is to be accepted as representing the evangelic autographs. I have elsewhere expressed the opinion that the project of getting back to the autographs is far too ambitious. Predecessors of WH had aimed at restoring a fourth-century text, that is to say, a text free from all later corruptions, and in carrying out this design they could be on perfectly firm ground. They could hold fast to the rule of preferring ancient authorities to modern; admitting readings which had attestation prior to the fourth century in preference to those which had not. But WH could not be content to limit their investigations to the fourth century, and when they went farther back they could find no halting-place short of the autographs. The result has been that they have had quite to abandon the having regard, in their preferences, to the antiquity of testimony. Hosts of readings which they reject have much more ancient attestation than those which they prefer. But evidently something is detracted from the certainty of our conclusions if our canons of probability lead us to prefer a later authority to an earlier. Dr. Hort deprecates the forming a judgment of our own on isolated texts, a method which gives too much influence to the subjectivity of the inquirer, and can therefore not be trusted to produce uniformity of results. His method is to make first a provisional examination; and if we find in a certain number of cases some authorities giving the reading that we can see to be clearly right, and others giving the wrong one, then to follow the former in other cases. In this way the influence of subjectivity is very much diminished, but it is not altogether eliminated; for it is our own judgment as to what readings in the selected cases are clearly right or clearly wrong that rules our decision, not only in these cases, but in all others having similar attestation. It is very likely that a good critic of the nineteenth century can form a much better judgment as to what an evangelist of the first century would have written, than the critic of the fourth century, who, according to WH, constituted the Textus Receptus. Yet there is a possibility that this assumption may be erroneous, and therefore the results to which it leads must be accepted, not as certain, but only as probable; and therefore such as must be abandoned if stronger opposing probabilities should present themselves. I should have thought it unnecessary to state anything so obvious as that the problem which WH have set themselves is one that admits no more than a probable solution, but that my quarrel with them much more seldom arises from unwillingness to accept their decisions as probable, than from reluctance to acknowledge them as demonstrated facts.

I have said already that, owing to the impossibility of laying the entire evidence before the ordinary reader, he can do no better than acquiesce in WH's decisions, even though he may at times have misgivings. But there is a second reason why criticism of their results is difficult namely, that their whole tone and method is that of teachers instructing disciples, not that of addressing persons capable of forming an independent judgment. In this, perhaps, they followed established Cambridge methods. In the exposition of mathematical theorems the course I liked best was to follow the progress of discovery, beginning with the problem which first stirred inquiry, going on to the questions to which the investigation of it gave rise, and finishing with the general principle ultimately arrived at. In Cambridge books, in my early days, little note was taken of history; and the student was merely furnished with a proof of the final result, which he could get by heart and reproduce on an examination paper when called on to do so. In Hort's exposition the student is not taken with him along the path that he himself had followed; he must start with the acceptance of the final result. Consequently one of the first things at which I took umbrage in WH's exposition was the question-begging nomenclature. A scientific nomenclature ought to be neutral; it ought to aim at simply representing the facts without assuming the truth of any theory about them. The first instance I have to mention is one to which I object rather on theoretical grounds, than because it did any practical mischief. Before WH's edition appeared there had been dispute among New Testament critics as to the value of the then recently discovered Syriac Version published by Dr. Cureton, which some conservative critics had described with very depreciatory epithets, while Cureton himself was willing to accept it as representing the original Aramaic St. Matthew. WH were quite within their province in making a ruling on this controversy; but 1 think they went outside it when they disturbed the former notation for the Curetonian and Peshitto Versions, which was on scientific grounds quite unobjectionable, since it presupposed no theory as to the dates of the versions; and when they taught their disciples to call the one " Vetus " and the other " Vulgata." Very probably their opinion as to the relative age of the two versions is correct; for such evidence as has since come to light favours their decision: but suppose recent discoveries had opposed it, why should we be committed to a faulty nomenclature? That the Curetonian Version is old I have no doubt: that it is older than the Peshitto is not proved by historic evidence, but only by the establishment of Hort's theory concerning the growth of the text, and therefore I considered that in expounding his theory it was premature to use a nomenclature which assumed that its truth had been established. I may say, however, that in the absolute dearth of trustworthy historic information as to Syriac versions during the first three centuries, it is wise to refrain from any positive affirmation on the subject. My private opinion is that the version which Hort calls Vetus is as old as Tatian, a man who, I am disposed to believe, like Origen, lost through some wildness of speculation the gratitude from the Church which his services to the cause of the Gospel deserved. On his return from Rome he would have brought back MSS. with him, and thus the affinities of the Syriac Gospel with the Western text could be accounted for. But what kind of text was current among Syriacspeaking people before Tatian's time, is a point on which we have not materials to enable us to speak with any confidence. And I dislike the name "Vetus," because it seems to imply a ruling on this point, and to teach us to regard a version of the Curetonian type as the old Syriac translation which had been accepted from the first. If Zahn's theory be correct that at first at the weekly meetings the Gospels were read in Greek and then interpreted into the vernacular by the reader, variations between the Greek MSS. used in different places might reproduce themselves in Syriac, while yet a good deal of the phraseology might have become stereotyped by traditional usage.

However, I willingly concede to experts the right to hold strong opinions on the relative antiquity of Syriac versions; and I should not have thought it worth while to notice this instance of Hort's innovations in nomenclature if I had not to speak of another case where I am persuaded that his innovations had the mischievous effect upon thought which a wrong use of words is apt to produce.

In recognizing three ancient types of text, Hort followed Griesbach, who called them Constantinopolitan, Western, and Alexandrian. The Constantinopolitan, the most modern of Griesbach's three, as its name indicates, is substantially what Hort calls Syrian; and we need not quarrel about the name,¹ since it may well be believed that Constantinople had derived much of its scholarship from Antioch. It would have been very excusable if Hort had refused to accept from Griesbach the title " Western," because this type of text is by no means confined to the West. In fact, Hort states (p. 113) that the text of all those writers not connected with Alexandria who have left considerable remains is substantially " Western." And he states (p. 127) that the only extant patristic writings which to any considerable extent support pre-Syrian non-Western readings are all connected with Alexandria viz. the remains of Clement and Origen, the fragments of Dionysius and Peter of Alexandria, and in a certain measure the works of Eusebius, who was deeply versed in the theological literature of Alexandria. Add to this that among the great versions which date from the earliest centuries it is only the two of Upper and Lower Egypt that can be pronounced extensively non-Western. Thus it would appear that the name " Non- Alexandrian " for this type of text would be more accurate than " Western "; but Hort pleads that to change a name now in use for a century would lead to confusion.

It would be more easy to accept this excuse if Hort were equally conservative in other cases; but while he refuses to alter the name " Western," notwithstanding that he owns that readings of this class were current in the East as well as in the West, and probably to a great extent had originated there, he refuses to retain the equally old use of the word "Alexandrian" on the ground that non-Western readings were not confined to Alexandria. The explanation of this inconsistency I believe to be found in the aim which, as I have already said, WH set before them, namely, to restore the apostolic autographs. When they had recovered as they believed an original text, the parent of all the others, it seemed to them dishonouring to it (see Hort, p. 130) to give it a local name, and hence they called it " neutral," as being free from later corruptions, whether introduced at Rome or at Alexandria. I count this to be a question-begging name. A geographical name is not question-begging. If it was possible for us to make with certainty a geographical distribution of MSS., so as to determine which text was used at Rome, which at Antioch, which at Alexandria, this would be a valuable piece of knowledge. Critics would be perfectly free to examine which text was most worthy of confidence, while they would find in the agreement of all three the very strongest claim to acceptance. But a name founded on the quality of the text presupposes that the text has been examined, and a decision pronounced on it which those who adopt the nomenclature cannot consistently reverse. The name " neutral " presupposes the establishment of WH's theory that all additions and alterations in this neutral text are due to later corruptions. But little mischief would have been done by the substitution of a new name for the old name " Alexandrian," if Hort had not, in order to shield his " neutral " text from the danger of being dishonoured by the epithet " Alexandrian," appropriated that title to another family of readings. He had been alive to the danger of confusion likely to arise if he departed from the established use of the word " Western "; but far greater confusion has arisen from his use of the word " Alexandrian " in a sense in which nobody before him had employed it. I have already quoted Hort's acknowledgment of the Alexandrian character of the attestation of pre-Syrian non-Western readings. This is as true of the readings which Hort calls " neutral " as of those to which he limits the name " Alexandrian." The latter name he confines to a class of readings " apparently originating in Alexandria, and limited in their early range." " The variations have usually more to do with language than of matter, and are marked by an effort after correctness of phrase." But if we want a more precise answer to the question what Hort means by " Alexandrian," we shall not be far wrong in saying, those readings which are Alexandrian in their origin and are not recognized by Codex B. It follows at once, not as a thing proved by evidence, but as a logical consequence of the definition, that B is neutral as being free, not only from Western, but also from Alexandrian readings. I consider that it is not scientific to stereotype a theory by a nomenclature until the theory has been established beyond reach of controversy. If WH have said the last word about New Testament criticism, we shall do well to adopt their nomenclature; but if it is to be open to us to examine the foundations of their theory, the first step to progress must be the abandonment of the fettering names in particular the word "neutral."

I strongly feel that Hort would have done better if he had left the old nomenclature undisturbed, and distinguished his neutral text from that which he calls "Alexandrian" by the names "early Alexandrian" and "later Alexandrian."² Names will not alter facts, though they may enable us to shut our eyes to them; and whatever names be used, the fact remains that in early times non-Western readings were limited in their range of prevalence. I do not think I underrate the immense service which WH have rendered to Biblical criticism, if I express my opinion that what they have restored is not the text of the original evangelic autographs, but the text of a MS. which came very early to Alexandria—probably in the third century and possibly before the end of the second. To this result Hort was naturally led by his method—viz. to take certain selected cases, and having in these cases determined the correct reading, to regard the authorities which gave that reading as entitled to preference in all other cases. Now there is no early information about readings more valuable than that given by Origen, who notes several variations of reading and declares his preferences. Such readings are most suitable for testing purposes. Naturally Hort regarded those MSS. as most trustworthy which give the readings recognized by Origen; and these no doubt were the readings which in the third century were most preferred at Alexandria. Thus Hort's method inevitably led to the exclusive adoption of the Alexandrian text.

If it were not that Hort considered any local name to be dishonouring to the text which he prefers, there is certainly no note of disparagement in the epithet " Alexandrian," for, as Hort remarks, it would not be surprising that a purer text should be preserved at Alexandria than in any other Church; for there, owing to the proximity of an exact grammatical school, a more than usual watchfulness over the writings of Apostles and apostolic men might be expected to be suggested and kept alive. If there were now disinterred from an Egyptian tomb a second or third-century New Testament MS., it would be regarded as an authority superior to any now accessible to us; and I ought not to be thought wanting in appreciation of the merits of WH's work, when I hold that by their successful restoration of an early Alexandrian text they have conferred on Biblical criticism a benefit of the same kind.

But one evil consequence has resulted from their refusal to give their text a local name. However high the authority we might ascribe to an ancient Alexandrian MS., we should not believe that it was infallible. If Alexandrians made such a claim, they would have exposed themselves to the questions—What! came the Word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? Alexandria was not the only city to which the Gospel came; and if we found in the Alexandrian MS. a reading which had all the appearance of being erroneous, we should think it reasonable to inquire, Was the same reading found in the text used by the Church of Rome, which must have been in possession of many MSS. that had come to it quite independently of Alexandria? But if we imagined that we were in possession of the apostolic autographs, or at least of the nearest approach that can now be made to them, we should naturally set aside all local variations with small examination. This is the attitude which Hort takes towards Western readings. In his eyes a reading is condemned at once if he can describe it as " Western " or "Western and Syrian." It maybe very ancient, very interesting, a very fine tradition; but it must not be thought of as part of the Gospel. He even seems to regard the Western scribes as such inveterate liars as only to tell the truth by accident.³ If his neutral text presents an impossible reading and the Western text a quite suitable one, he will not admit it as conceivable that it may have reached the West by an independent tradition. It could have been only a lucky guess, and he holds himself quite free to make a better guess of his own if he can.

A good example is Acts xii. 25, where in the " neutral " text the historian is made to say that Barnabas and Saul returned to Jerusalem. But the previous history had brought them to Jerusalem, and gives no hint that they had ever left it. Indeed, as the verse goes on to state that they took with them John whose surname was Mark, who is immediately after found as their travelling companion, there can be no reasonable doubt that it was from Jerusalem that they took him. Now the narrative immediately before this verse had told of events which had occurred in Cassarea, and it was a very intelligible mistake, if, at the point where the narrative returns from Caesarea to Jerusalem, an early scribe should write returned to instead of from Jerusalem. And such was the form in the parent of the " neutral " text. But if we want to know whether or not this was the form of the original, we have only to consult another line of transmission. On the question whether the sense of the original was " from " or " to " a Latin MS. gives as distinct an answer as a Greek one; and the Latin MSS. are unanimous in favour of "from." But Hort urges that of the authorities which reject the reading εἰς, some have ἀπό and some have ἐξ. Neither of these was likely to be changed into the other, and still less into εἰς; therefore both must be rejected as conjectural attempts to remove a difficulty; and so he feels that there is room for a conjectural emendation of his own, which has no manuscript support, but which has at least the merit of retaining the εἰς of his favourite authority. But why must ἀπό and ἐξ be both conjectural alterations? May not one have been a conjectural alteration, and the other the true reading?

This is not an isolated case. Hort (p. 132) derives one of his proofs of the priority of his neutral text from the cases of simultaneous aberrations from it of the Western and Alexandrian texts, especially " when they severally exhibit independent modes of easing an apparent difficulty in the text antecedent to both." Here he evidently assumes that the discordance between the two modes of easing the difficulty shows that they are both mere guesses, and can claim no authority. But this view is altogether suggested by his nomenclature. If he had called his neutral and Alexandrian texts "early and later Alexandrian," it would at once suggest itself that the solution presented by the latter might probably have only been a critical conjectural emendation of what was felt to be a faulty reading in the current text of the region; but that the Western solution coming through a quite independent line of ancestry was very likely to be the true one. Hort's judgment is quite the reverse: if he is forced to choose between a Western reading and a later Alexandrian, he prefers the latter, seeming to make it a matter of conscience not to admit anything to appear on his pages on merely Western authority. Thus in the present case he reports that ἀπό appears to be the Western reading, and therefore he does not give it admission even to his margin where ἐξ is found for those who are not satisfied with εἰς. To me the Western readings seem to be so clearly one stage higher in seniority to the later Alexandrian that it is unjust to place them on a level. In particular it seems to me nothing less than an outrage to print the shorter conclusion of St. Mark on the same page with the received longer conclusion; for I cannot believe that the editors would have given a place in their New Testament to a passage having such manifest marks of spuriousness, if it were not intended by this undeserved honour conferred on the former to degrade the latter to the same level. So I have heard of a village apothecary and village attorney being astonished at receiving dinner invitations from a neighbouring haughty peeress; the explanation being that her lord had insisted on her inviting a certain small squire, and this was her way of preventing him from being too much elated by the compliment.

However, there is nothing that Hort fights more against than the idea that his neutral text can properly be called " Alexandrian." He eagerly catches at the notion that B, its principal representative, was written, not at Alexandria, but probably at Rome. The reasons for regarding the text of B as Alexandrian remain the same no matter where this particular MS. chanced to be copied. However, the theory that it was written at Rome has not commanded assent, and we can assign a different locality for its origin with a degree of probability which is astonishingly high, when we consider the difficulty of the problem. On pal geographical grounds both B and א have been adjudged to belong to the fourth century, and probably not to be later than the middle of it. Now Tischendorf discovered (for no weaker word is suitable, his demonstration having convinced Hort himself) that these two MSS. were contemporary, and issued from the same workshop. Three sheets of א, holding places in distant quires, would seem to have been cancelled and replaced by others in a different hand; and this hand has been recognized as that of the scribe who wrote the New Testament in B. And yet א and B are not copied either one from the other or both from the same MS. It is plain then that they came from a great workshop where the copying of New Testament MSS. was going on, and whose resources were such that two different scribes could each be given a different MS. to copy. It does not appear to have been thought necessary that the two archetypes should be compared⁴ or any attempt made to harmonize their disagreements, whether it was that such punctilious accuracy was not cared for,⁵ or else because the limited time allowed for the performance of the work did not permit too minute care. Now, at the very time to which these two MSS. have been referred, Caesarea was a great centre for the multiplication of MSS., and Constantine, about 332, had given an order for fifty complete copies of the Scriptures by skilful calligraphers for the use of the Churches in his new capital. Whether all these copies were made at Caesarea or not, it must certainly at the time have been a place of busy book-manufacture, and it is extremely probable that B and א were written there at that time. It presents no difficulty that the contents of neither correspond with the catalogue given by Eusebius in his Church History, for it may be supposed that the Caesarean scribes followed their respective archetypes. Now the Caesarean library owed its chief treasures to Origen, so it is not surprising that the Caesarean Bibles should contain an Alexandrian text; and it was to be expected that this text, supported by the authority of Eusebius, who was a great admirer of Origen, and afterwards by that of Jerome, should greatly influence subsequent copies. In fact, the only thing to be wondered at is that this did not become the unique type of New Testament text.  

1) My chief objection to the name is that it is open to a confusion between Syrian and Syriac. Thus when Hort, as he often does, describes a reading as Western and Syrian, the reader is in danger of supposing the meaning to be that the Western reading agrees with that of the ancient Syriac versions, whereas what he really means is that the Western reading has been adopted by the Textus Receptus, which he calls Syrian. I think Hort's idea would have been better expressed by the word "Antiochian"; or if it were thought impossible to gain acceptance for a word of five syllables in modern English, Antioch might have been used as an adjective.

2) Hort (p. 171) makes the suggestive remark that documents which have most Alexandrian have also most neutral readings. It is a little surprising that he did not draw the obvious inference that this is because the documents which contain the neutral readings are Alexandrian.

3) Hort's method of testing the goodness of groups of MSS. has in some cases led him to the curious result that a group of two or three MSS. which ordinarily is found to give correct readings becomes untrustworthy if it obtains the adherence of a fourth MS. In our ordinary judgments on testimony, a statement in which two or three credible witnesses agree may not be supposed to gain much from being corroborated by another witness less accurate or faithful; but at least it is not thought to lose anything in credibility from this accession of testimony. But WH's experience is that the stream of testimony suffers perceptible deterioration when less pure elements are allowed to mingle with it.

4) One case of such comparison would seem to have been the concluding verses of St. Mark, which apparently existed in the archetype of א, and were struck out by the corrector of the transcript; very probably by the authority of Eusebius himself, whose opinion is known to have been adverse to these verses.

5) Origen in some cases takes notice of variations of readings, and expresses his preferences; yet in other cases he is found quoting the same texts differently on different occasions; from which it seems may be inferred that he had not been solicitous to bring the MSS. which he used to uniformity. This will be less surprising if we bear in mind how very modern is the minute care that is now deemed to be necessary. It is enough to quote Scrivener's verdict on the performances of his predecessors in the work of collation, all of them men to whom sacred literature is under great obligations.

Of Archbishop Ussher's collation of Codex D he says: "I am grieved that truth compels me to say that I never examined a performance more inaccurate than this. Besides numberless omissions, manifest typographical errors, a looseness and carelessness of citation which is remarkable, and almost constant inability to distinguish the first from the later hands, its actual misstatements are so many that I have accumulated a catalogue of 228, with which it is needless to trouble the reader."

Of Mill he says: " Largeness of view, critical sagacity, wide and lifelong research comprehend Mill's claim on our gratitude for his great services to textual criticism. Those who award him the humble praise of an accurate collator can have used his edition of the Greek Testament but little."

Of Wetstein: " Too many of his readings are marvellously untrue."

Of Bentley: " The readings he gives for Codex D are few and vague and inexact enough, but no one who has examined his collation of the Codex Augiensis will expect much in this way from our great Aristarchus."