Chapter 3
Chapter 3.
Of various lections in the Greek Copies of the new Testament.
Section 1. For Various Lections in the Greek Copies of the new Testament, we know with what diligence and industry, they have been collected by some, and what improvement has been made of those Collections by others. Protestants for the most part have been the chiefest collectors of them; Stephanus, Camerarius, Beza, Camero, Grotius, Drusius, Hensius, D'Dieu, Capellus, all following Erasmus, have had the prime hand in that work. Papists have plowed with their Heifer to disparage the original, and to cry up the vulgar Latin; A specimen of their endeavors we have in the late virulent Exercitations of Morinus. At first very few were observed. What a heap or Bulk they are now swelled unto, we see in this Appendix. The collection of them makes up a Book bigger than the new Testament itself. Of those that went before, most gave us only what they found in some particular Copies that themselves were possessors of; some those only which they judged of importance, or that might make some pretense to be considered whether they were proper or no; Here we have all, that by any means could be brought to hand, and that whether they are tolerably attested for various lections or no; for as to any contribution unto the better understanding of the Scripture from them; it cannot be pretended. And whether this work may yet grow, I know not.
Section 2. That there are in some Copies of the new Testament, and those some of them of some Good Antiquity, diverse Readings, in things or words of less importance is acknowledged; the proof of it lies within the reach of most, in the Copies that we have; and I shall not solicit the reputation of those who have afforded us others, out of their own private furniture. That they have been all needlessly heaped up together, if not to an eminent scandal is no less evident. Let us then take a little view of their rise and importance.
Section 3. That the Grecian, was once as it were the vulgar language of the whole world of Christians is known. The writing of the new Testament in that language in part found it so, and in part made it so. What Thousands? yea what millions of copies of the new Testament were then in the world, all men promiscuously reading and studying of the Scripture, cannot be reckoned. That so many Transcriptions, most of them by private Persons, for private use, having a standard of correction in their public Assemblies ready to relieve their mistakes, should be made without some variation, is, [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩]. From the copies of the first Ages, others in the succeeding have been transcribed, according as men had opportunity. From those which are come down to the hands of learned men in this latter age, whereof very few or none at all, are of any considerable Antiquity, have men made it their business to collect the various Readings we speak of; with what usefulness and serviceableness to the Churches of God, others that look on must be allowed their liberty to Judge. We know the Vanity, Curiosity, Pride, and naughtiness of the heart of man: How ready we are to please ourselves, with things that seem singular and remote from the observation of the many; and how ready to publish them as evidences of our Learning and diligence, let the fruit and issue be what it will. Hence it is come to pass, not to question the credit of any man speaking of his manuscripts, (which is wholly swallowed in this Appendix) that whatever varying word, syllable, or Tittle, could be by any observed, wherein any Book, though of yesterday, varies from the common received copy, though manifestly a mistake, superfluous, or deficient, inconsistent with the sense of the place, yea barbarous, is presently imposed on us as a various lection.
Section 4. As then I shall not speak any thing to derogate from the worth of their Labour who have gathered all these various Readings into one body or volume, so I presume I may take liberty without offense to say, I should more esteem of theirs, who would endeavor to search and trace out these pretenders, to their several originals, and rejecting the spurious brood that has now spawned itself over the face of so much paper, that ought by no means to be brought into competition with the common Reading, would reduce them to such a necessary number, whose consideration might be of some other use, than merely to create a Temptation to the Reader, that nothing is left sound and entire in the word of God.
However now Satan seems to have exerted the utmost of his malice, men of former Ages the utmost of their negligence, of these latter Ages of their diligence, the Result of all which, we have in the present collection in this Appendix, with them that rightly ponder things there arises nothing at all to the prejudice of our Assertion, as may possibly, God assisting, be further manifested hereafter in the particular consideration of some, or all of these divers Readings therein exhibited unto us. Those which are of importance, have been already considered by others; especially Glassius; Tractate 1 book 1.
Section 5. It is evident that the design of this Appendix was to gather together every thing of this sort, that might by any means be afforded; At the Present, that the Reader may not be too much startled at the fruit of their diligence, whose work and labor it was, I shall only remark concerning it some few things that on a general view of it occur unto me.
Section 6. 1. Then here is professedly no choice made, nor judgment used in discerning, which may indeed be called various Lections; but all differences whatever that could be found in any copies, printed or written, are equally given out. Hence many differences that had been formerly rejected by learned men for open corruptions, are here tendered us again. The very first observation in the Treatise next printed unto this collection in the Appendix itself, rejects one of the varieties, as a corruption. So have some others of them been by Arias Montanus, Camero, and many more. It is not every variety or difference in a copy that should presently be cried up for a various Reading. A man might with as good color and pretense take all the printed copies he could get, of various editions, and gathering out the errata Typographica, print them for various Lections, as give us many, I shall say the most of these in this Appendix, under that name. It may be said indeed, that the Composers of this Appendix found it not incumbent on them, to make any judgment of the Readings, which de facto they found in the copies they perused, but merely to represent what they so found, leaving the judgment of them unto others; I say also it may be so; and therefore as I do not reflect on them, nor their diligence, so I hope they nor others, will not be offended, that I give this notice of what Judgment remains yet to be made concerning them.
Section 7. 2 Whereas Beza, who is commonly blamed by men of all sides and parties, for making too bold upon various lections, has professedly stigmatized his own manuscript, that he sent unto Cambridge, as so corrupt in the Gospel of Luke, that he durst not publish the various lections of it, for fear of offense and scandal, however he thought it had not fallen into the hands of Heretics, that had designedly depraved it; we have here, if I mistake not, all the corruptions of that copy given us as various Readings; for though I have not seen the copy itself, yet the swelling of the various lections in that Gospel, into a bulk as big or bigger, than the collection of all the new Testament besides the Gospels and Acts, wherein that copy is cited 1440 times, puts it out of all question that so we are dealt withal: Now if this course be taken, and every stigmatized copy may be searched for differences, and these presently printed to be various readings, there is no doubt but we may have enough of them to frighten poor unstable souls into the arms of the pretended infallible guide; I mean as to the use that will be made of this work, by such persons as Morinus.
Section 8. 3 I am not without Apprehensions that opere in longo obrepsit somnus, and that whilst the learned Collectors had their hands and minds busied about other things, some mistakes did fall into this work of gathering these various lections. Some things I meet withal in it, that I profess, I cannot bring to any good consistency among themselves; to let pass particular instances, and insist on one only of a more general and eminent importance. In the entrance unto this collection an account is given us of the ancient copies, out of which these observations are made; Among the rest one of them is said to be an ancient copy in the Library of Emanuel College in Cambridge: this is noted by the letters Em: throughout the whole collection. Now whereas it is told us in those preliminary cautions and observations, that it contains only Pauls Epistles, I wonder how it is come to pass, that so many various lections in the Gospels and Acts, as in the farrago itself are fixed on the credit of that book, could come to be gathered out of a copy of Pauls Epistles; certainly here must be some mistake, either in the learned Authors of the previous directions, or by those employed to gather the varieties following; And it may be supposed that that mistake goes not alone; so that upon a farther consideration of particulars, it may be, we shall not find them so clearly attested, as at first view they seem to be. It would indeed be a miracle, if in a work of that variety many things should not escape the eye of the most diligent observer.
Section 9. I am not then upon the whole matter out of hopes, but that upon a diligent review of all these various Lections, they may be reduced to a less offensive, and less formidable number; Let it be remembered that the vulgar copy we use, was the public possession of many generations; that upon the invention of Printing, it was in actual authority throughout the World, with them that used and understood that Language, as far as any thing appears to the contrary. Let that then pass for the standard which is confessedly its right and due, and we shall God assisting quickly see, how little reason there is to pretend such varieties of Readings, as we are now surprised withal. For 1. Let those places be separated, which are not sufficiently attested unto, so as to pretend to be various lections: it being against all pretense of Reason, that every mistake of every obscure private copy, perhaps not above 2 or 300 years old, (or if elder) should be admitted as a various lection, against the concurrent consent of it may be all others that are extant in the world, and that without any congruity of Reason, as to the sense of the Text where it is fallen out. Men may if they please take pains to inform the world, wherein such and such copies are corrupted, or mistaken, but to impose their known failings on us as various lections, is a course not to be approved.
2. Let the same judgment, and that deservedly, pass on all those different places, which are altogether inconsiderable, consisting in accents or the change of a letter, not in the least intrenching on the sense of the place, or giving the least intimation of any other sense to be possibly gathered out of them, but what is in the approved reading; to what end should the minds of men be troubled with them or about them, being evident mistakes of the scribes, and of no importance at all.
3. Let them also be removed from the pretenses which carry their own convictions along with them, that they are spurious, either 1 By their superfluity or redundancy of unnecessary Words, or secondly their deficiency in words, evidently necessary to the sense of their places, or 3. their incoherence with the Text in their several stations, or 4. evidence of being intended as expository of difficulties, having been moved and assoiled by some of the ancients upon the places, and their resolutions being intimated; or 5. are foisted out of the 70, as many places out of the new have been asserted into that copy of the old; or 6. are taken out of one place in the same penman, and are used in another, or 7. are apparently taken out of one Gospel, and supplied in another, to make out the sense of the place; or 8. have been corrected by the Vulgar Latin, which has often fallen out in some copies, as Lucas Brugensis shows us on Matthew 17. 2. Mark. 1. 38. and 7. 4. and sundry other places; or 9. arise out of Copies apparently corrupted, like that of Beza in Luke, and that in the Vatican, boasted of by Huntly the Jesuit, which Lucas Brugensis affirms to have been changed by the Vulgar Latin, and was written and corrected, as Erasmus says, about the Council of Florence, when an agreement was patched up between the Greeks and Latins; or 10. are notoriously corrupted by the old Heretics, as [•]John 5. 7. Unto which heads, many, yea the most of the various lections collected in this Appendix may be referred; I say if this work might be done with care and diligence (whereunto I earnestly exhort some in this University, who have both ability and leisure for it) it would quickly appear, how small the number is of those varieties in the Greek copies of the new Testament, which may pretend unto any consideration under the state and Title of various Lections; and of how very little importance they are, to weaken in any measure my former Assertion concerning the care and providence of God in the preservation of his Word. But this is a work of more time and leisure, than at present I am possessor of; what is to come, [⟨ in non-Latin alphabet ⟩]. In the mean time I doubt not, but to hear tidings from Rome concerning this variety; no such Collection having as yet been made in the world.
Chapter 3.
Of variant readings in the Greek copies of the New Testament.
Section 1. We know with what diligence and effort variant readings in the Greek copies of the New Testament have been collected by some, and what use has been made of those collections by others. Protestants have for the most part been the chief collectors of them. Stephanus, Camerarius, Beza, Camero, Grotius, Drusius, Heinsius, D'Dieu, Capellus — all following Erasmus — have played the primary role in that work. Papists have used their research to discredit the original and promote the Vulgar Latin. A sample of their efforts can be found in the recent hostile Exercitations of Morinus. At first, very few variant readings were noticed. But look at what a heap or bulk they have now swelled into in this Appendix. The collection of them makes up a book bigger than the New Testament itself. Among those who came before, most gave us only what they found in certain particular copies that they themselves possessed. Some gave us only those readings they judged important or that might have some claim to being considered legitimate. Here, however, we have everything that could by any means be brought together, whether they are adequately supported as variant readings or not. As for any contribution to better understanding of Scripture from them, no such claim can be made. And whether this work may continue to grow, I do not know.
Section 2. It is acknowledged that in some copies of the New Testament — and some of them of respectable antiquity — there are diverse readings in things or words of lesser importance. The proof of this is within the reach of most people, in the copies we already have. I will not question the reputation of those who have provided us with others from their own private collections. That these readings have all been needlessly heaped together, if not to a point of serious scandal, is equally obvious. Let us then take a brief look at their origin and significance.
Section 3. It is well known that Greek was once essentially the common language of the entire Christian world. The writing of the New Testament in that language partly found it so and partly made it so. How many thousands — indeed, how many millions — of copies of the New Testament were then in the world, with all people reading and studying Scripture without restriction, cannot be counted. That so many transcriptions, most of them made by private individuals for private use (with a standard of correction available in their public assemblies to correct their mistakes), should have been made without some variation is simply impossible. From the copies of the first ages, others in the ages that followed were transcribed as opportunity allowed. From those that have come down to the hands of learned people in this later age — of which very few, if any at all, are of any considerable antiquity — scholars have made it their business to collect the variant readings we are discussing. How useful and beneficial this has been to the churches of God, others who look on must be allowed their freedom to judge. We know the vanity, curiosity, pride, and wickedness of the human heart: how ready we are to please ourselves with things that seem unusual and beyond the notice of most people, and how eager to publish them as proof of our learning and diligence, whatever the outcome may be. The result of all this is that — without questioning the honesty of anyone reporting on his manuscripts (which is simply taken for granted in this Appendix) — whatever varying word, syllable, or detail could be found by anyone, in any book (even one from yesterday), differing from the commonly received copy — even if it is clearly a mistake, superfluous, deficient, inconsistent with the sense of the passage, or even ungrammatical — is immediately presented to us as a variant reading.
Section 4. While I will say nothing to diminish the value of the labor of those who have gathered all these variant readings into one volume, I presume I may freely say without causing offense that I would value even more the work of those who would endeavor to search out and trace these pretenders to their various origins. By rejecting the illegitimate brood that has now spread itself across so many pages — readings that by no means should be brought into competition with the accepted text — they could reduce them to a manageable number whose examination might serve some purpose other than simply creating a temptation for the reader to think that nothing remains sound and complete in the Word of God.
However, now that Satan seems to have exerted the full extent of his malice, men of earlier ages the full extent of their negligence, and men of later ages the full extent of their diligence — the result of all of which we have in the present collection in this Appendix — for those who carefully weigh things, nothing at all arises to undermine our assertion. This may perhaps, God helping, be further demonstrated in the future through a detailed examination of some or all of the diverse readings presented to us there. Those readings that are of real importance have already been considered by others, especially Glassius (Tract 1, book 1).
Section 5. It is clear that the purpose of this Appendix was to gather together everything of this kind that could possibly be found. For the present, so that the reader may not be too alarmed by the fruit of the diligence of those whose work and labor it was, I will only note a few things about it that occur to me from a general overview.
Section 6. 1. First, no selection was made here, and no judgment was used in discerning which entries may truly be called variant readings. Instead, all differences of any kind that could be found in any copies, whether printed or handwritten, are equally presented. As a result, many differences that had previously been rejected by learned men as obvious corruptions are offered to us once again. The very first observation in the treatise printed right after this collection in the Appendix itself rejects one of the variants as a corruption. Some others have been similarly rejected by Arias Montanus, Camero, and many more. Not every variation or difference in a copy should immediately be proclaimed a variant reading. A person might just as plausibly take every printed copy available from various editions, collect all the typographical errors, and publish them as variant readings, as present many — I would say most — of the entries in this Appendix under that name. It may be said, of course, that the compilers of this Appendix did not consider it their responsibility to evaluate the readings they actually found in the copies they examined, but merely to report what they found, leaving the evaluation to others. I agree that this may be the case. Therefore, just as I do not criticize them or their diligence, I hope neither they nor others will be offended that I give this notice about the evaluation that still needs to be done concerning these readings.
Section 7. 2. Whereas Beza, who is commonly criticized by people of all sides and parties for being too bold with variant readings, deliberately labeled his own manuscript (which he sent to Cambridge) as so corrupt in the Gospel of Luke that he did not dare publish its variant readings for fear of causing offense and scandal — although he thought it had not fallen into the hands of heretics who had deliberately corrupted it — we have here, if I am not mistaken, all the corruptions of that copy presented to us as variant readings. For though I have not seen the copy itself, the swelling of the variant readings in that Gospel into a bulk as large as or larger than the collection for the entire New Testament apart from the Gospels and Acts (in which that copy is cited 1,440 times) puts it beyond all question that this is what has been done. Now if this approach is taken, and every discredited copy may be searched for differences that are then immediately printed as variant readings, there is no doubt we may have enough of them to frighten poor unstable souls into the arms of the supposedly infallible guide — I mean regarding the use that people like Morinus will make of this work.
Section 8. 3. I suspect that sleepiness crept in during this long work, and that while the learned collectors had their hands and minds occupied with other things, some mistakes found their way into this work of gathering variant readings. I encounter some things in it that I frankly cannot bring into any good consistency with each other. Setting aside particular examples, I will focus on just one of more general and prominent importance. At the beginning of this collection, an account is given of the ancient copies from which these observations were made. Among the rest, one is described as an ancient copy in the library of Emanuel College in Cambridge, noted throughout the entire collection by the letters Em. Now, while the preliminary notes and instructions tell us that it contains only Paul's Epistles, I wonder how it happened that so many variant readings in the Gospels and Acts — as appear in the main collection itself — attributed to that book could have been gathered from a copy of Paul's Epistles. There must certainly be some mistake here, either by the learned authors of the preliminary directions or by those employed to gather the variants that follow. And it may be assumed that this mistake does not stand alone, so that upon further examination of specifics, we may not find them as clearly supported as they first appear to be. It would indeed be a miracle if in a work of such scope many things did not escape the eye of even the most diligent observer.
Section 9. I am therefore not without hope that upon a careful review of all these variant readings, they may be reduced to a less troublesome and less alarming number. Let it be remembered that the standard text we use was the public possession of many generations, and that when printing was invented, it held actual authority throughout the world among those who used and understood that language, as far as any evidence indicates. Let that text, then, stand as the standard — which is clearly its right and due — and we will, God helping, quickly see how little reason there is to claim such varieties of readings as we are now confronted with. For first, let those readings be separated out that are not adequately supported to qualify as variant readings. It is against all reason that every mistake in every obscure private copy, perhaps only two or three hundred years old (or even if older), should be accepted as a variant reading against the unanimous agreement of perhaps all the other copies in existence — and this without any logical fit to the sense of the passage where it occurs. People may, if they wish, take the trouble to inform the world where certain copies are corrupted or mistaken, but to impose their known errors on us as variant readings is a practice that cannot be approved.
2. Let the same judgment, and rightly so, apply to all those variant passages that are entirely trivial, consisting of accents or the change of a letter that does not in the least touch the meaning of the passage or give the slightest hint of any other sense than what is in the approved reading. Why should people's minds be troubled with or about them, since they are obvious scribal mistakes of no importance at all?
3. Let those readings also be removed from consideration that carry their own proof of being fraudulent: either (1) by their excess or redundancy of unnecessary words; or (2) their deficiency in words clearly necessary to the sense of their passages; or (3) their incoherence with the text in their respective places; or (4) evidence that they were intended as explanations of difficult passages, having been raised and resolved by some of the ancient scholars on those passages, with their solutions being incorporated; or (5) readings taken from the Septuagint, just as many passages from the New Testament have been inserted into that copy of the Old; or (6) readings taken from one passage in the same author and applied to another; or (7) readings obviously taken from one Gospel and supplied in another to fill out the meaning; or (8) readings that have been corrected by the Vulgar Latin, which has often happened in some copies, as Lucas Brugensis shows us on Matthew 17:2, Mark 1:38, and 7:4, and various other places; or (9) readings arising from copies that are obviously corrupt, like Beza's copy of Luke and the one in the Vatican boasted of by Huntly the Jesuit, which Lucas Brugensis says was altered to match the Vulgar Latin, and which was written and corrected (as Erasmus says) around the time of the Council of Florence, when an agreement was patched together between the Greeks and Latins; or (10) readings that were notoriously corrupted by ancient heretics, such as 1 John 5:7. To these categories, many — indeed most — of the variant readings collected in this Appendix may be assigned. I say that if this work were done with care and diligence (and I earnestly urge some in this University who have both the ability and the time for it to undertake it), it would quickly become apparent how small the number is of those variations in the Greek copies of the New Testament that can legitimately claim any consideration under the title of variant readings, and how very little importance they have for weakening in any way my earlier assertion about the care and providence of God in preserving His Word. But this is a work requiring more time and leisure than I currently possess. What is to come, God knows. In the meantime, I have no doubt that we will hear from Rome about this collection of variants, since no such collection has ever been made in the world before.
