Griesbachnow Peter L. P. Simpson

8/12/2019 Griesbachnow Peter L. P. Simpson

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Introduction

In his masterly book Storia della Tradizione e Critica del Testo(Le Monnier, Firenze,

1962) rightly described by Martin L. West as a wise opus (Textual Criticism and

Editorial Technique, Teubner, Stuttgart 1973, p. 6) Giorgio Pasquali highly

recommends (p. 10) another book, Johann Jakob Griesbachs second edition of the NewTestament(Novum Testamentum Graece, Halle, 1796). Pasquali had in mind, not

Griesbachs text of theNewTestamentitself, but the prefatory material that Griesbachadded to it and in particular the third section of the Prolegomena(Pasquali indicates in a

note that his attention was drawn to these Prolegomenaby another author, Dom Henri

Quentin,Essais de Critique Textuelle, Picard, Paris 1926, pp. 30ff).This third section of Griesbachs Prolegomenais entitledSynopsis of the Main

Critical Observations and Rules to which we have Conformed ourJudgment aboutDiscrepant Readings (Conspectus Potiorum Observationum Criticarum et Regularum, ad

Quas Nostrum de Descrepantibus Lectionibus Iudicium Conformavimus). About itPasquali writes: Also in my view the rules formulated by him in the Sectiotertia(pp.

LIX ff.) would deserve to be reprinted and diffused among scholars and students ofphilology as a sort of catechism (Anche secondo me le regole da lui formulate nellaSectio tertia (p. LIX sgg.) meriterebbero di essere ristampate e diffuse tra studiosi e

studenti di filologia quasi un catechismo). In particular Pasquali notes that Griesbach was

the first to enunciate clearly and accurately the rule of lectiodifficilior(the rule to choosethe more difficult reading over the easier, stated and amplified in points 1-3 of the

Synopsis), though he also properly notes that Griesbach was indebted for some of his

rules, and in part indeed for the lectiodifficilorrule, to Johann Jakob Wettstein,Prolegomena ad Novi Testamenti Graeci Editionem Accuratissimam(Amsterdam, 1730).Thanks to Google books, Griesbachs old text is now available online:

(Accessed 10/31/2010. Search under: novum testamentum graece. Result:http://books.google.com/books?id=ra0-

AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=novum+testamentum+graece&hl=en&ei=ctLNTJ

L8NIL58AaQ5Mi7BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false).

Pasqualis judgment is exact though Griesbachs rules, as will be evident from reading

them and is anyway true in general of rules in most matters, need to be used with duecare and prudence. In addition Griesbach seems not to be altogether without partisan

commitment (as perhaps in rule 6 and some of his comments in rule 8). The Prolegomena

are, of course, directed to the textual criticism of theNewTestamentand the examples allrelate to that topic. But these examples, while particular in their nature, are general in

their significance; hence the principles they illustrate apply to the textual criticism of all

ancient texts. Even those matters where Griesbach seems to have erred, as in particular inhis classification (or stemmata) ofNewTestamentmanuscripts and recensions, retain

their general significance, because they are fine instances of the sortof thing that any

critic must do when dealing with manuscripts and judging their divergent readings. Onemay, therefore, if one wishes, treat his classification as an imaginative reconstruction and

just read it by way of test case for what sort of rules to apply when and where and how.


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Pasquali was thus not wrong to wish Griesbachs Prolegomenato be distributed as a sort

of catechism among lovers of philology and textual criticism. A partial translation of thefirst 15 rules in the Prolegomenais already available online, at http://www.bible-

researcher.com/bib-g.html, but a full translation of the whole, including what it contains

in addition to those rules, is not. Accordingly, I have decided, now that modern

technology and Google have bestowed on us a world so easily and so richly furnishedwith materials for learning of all kinds, to do my part in realizing Pasqualis proposal by

translating into English the whole of the third section of Griesbachs Prolegomenaanduploading it here to my website for scholars and students of philology to profit from

and enjoy to the full. Notice of errors and suggestions for improvement will be most

welcome.

Peter L.P. Simpson. Feast of All Saints. 2010.

[email protected]


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Synopsis of the Main Critical Observations and Rules to which we have Conformed our

Judgment about Discrepant Readings.

J.J.Griesbach.

In balancing discrepant readings against each other, one ought to have regard to the

intrinsic goodness of each reading and also of the witnesses that are produced for each

reading, and their weight and agreement.

A reading is commended by its own inherent goodnesswhen:Eitherit is most of all in

agreement with the authors manner, style, scope of thought and feeling, and with the

other circumstantial features, whether exegetic (as context, adjuncts, opposites, etc.) or

historical; Oris so composed that, once it has been posited as primitive, one can easily

understand how all the other readings may have been generated from it, either by an error

of the copyists or by the inept attention of scribes, grammarians, commentators, or critics.

A second criterion of a genuine reading that we should place before our eyes so that we

can rightly apply it in judging readings of the text of theNew Testamentis, on the one

hand, the causes by which any copyist in transcribing originals of any kind could be

carried off into errors, and, on the other, the rocks on which those copyists more than

others would run aground who devoted themselves to making apographs of the books of

theNew Testament, and even first of all the huge distance which separates the style of the

Evangelists and Apostles from the style of writing of the best Greek authors. He who

attentively considers these points will discern that, from the law of criticism which bids


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that that reading is to be preferred before others whence the origin of the others may most

easily be explained, the following rules can be derived:

1. The briefer reading is to be preferred to the more wordy, unless it is entirelydevoid of the sanction of ancient and weighty witnesses. For copyists were much

more prone to add than to omit. They scarcely ever of set purpose passed over

anything and added a great deal; by chance, however, some things got missed out,

but also not a few things were added to the text by the error allowed in by the

copyists of their eyes, ears, memory, imagination, and judgment. Now in the first

place, the briefer reading, even if it is inferior to a second in the authority of its

witnesses, is to be preferred: a) if it is at the same time harder, more obscure,

ambiguous, elliptical, Hebraizing, or a solecism; b) if the same thing, expressed in

differing phrases, is read in diverse codices; c) if the order of the nouns is

inconstant and varying; d) if it is at the beginnings of sections or pericopes; e) if

the fuller reading has the flavor of a gloss or interpolation, or agrees word for

word with parallel loci, or seems to have migrated thither from the lectionaries.

But, on the contrary, we prefer the fuller reading to the briefer (unless many and

distinguished witnesses preserve the briefer): ) if homoeoteleuton could furnish

reason for omission; ) if what is omitted could seem to the copyists obscure,

hard, superfluous, unusual, paradoxical, offensive to pious ears, erroneous,

contrary to parallel loci; ) if the things omitted could be omitted without loss of

sense or word structure, of which kind are the propositions which they call

incidental, especially the briefer ones, and other things whose absence the copyist,


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upon re-reading what he had written, would not easily notice; ) if the briefer

reading is less agreeable to the genius, or style, or scope of the author; ) if it

utterly lacks sense; ) if it is probable that it has crept in from parallel loci or the

lectionaries.

2. The more difficult and obscure reading1is to be preferred to that in whicheverything is so open and uncomplicated that any copyist could easily understand

it. Now those readings most vexed unlearned copyists by their obscurity and

difficulty: a) whose meaning could not easily be perceived without a more

intimate knowledge of Graecisms, Hebraisms, history, archaeology, etc.; b) which,

when admitted, the thought would seem to be impeded in the wording by

difficulties of several kinds, or a fitting connection of the parts of speech to be

dissolved, or the nerve of the arguments proffered by the author for confirming

his thesis to be severed.

3. Let a harder reading be preferred to one where, when it is posited, the writingflows sweetly and smoothly. A reading is harder that is elliptical, Hebraizing, a

solecism, abhorrent to the way of speaking usual to the Greeks, or offensive to the

ears by sound of words.

4. The more unusual reading is superior to one wherein nothing unusual iscontained. Therefore let rarer words, or at any rate those more rarely employed in

the sense that must be allowed in the place the question is about, and phrases and

1There is no need for us to go on repeating time and time again that readings which, considered in

themselves, we judge to be superior are only to be preferred to the rest in case they have the commendation

of the votes of at least some ancient witnesses. For what rests on no suitable authority but only on recent

and cheap ones does not enter into the reckoning. But the more the intrinsic indications of excellence are on

which any reading rests, the fewer the witnesses are that there is need of for its vindication. It can therefore

happen that some reading stands out with so many and so manifest criteria of its goodness that two

witnesses, provided they belong to different groups or families, nay a single one, may be sufficient support.


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constructions of words less worn by use, be preferred to the more vulgar ones. For

copyists snatch eagerly at things more usual in lieu of things more recherch, and

are accustomed to substitute glosses and interpretations in their stead (especially

if such are supplied in the margin or parallel passages).

5. Less emphatic locutions, unless the context and scope of the author demandsemphasis, come closer to genuine scripture than readings discrepant from them

that have or seem to have greater force in them. For copyists2of a little learning,

like commentators, loved and seized at emphases.

6.

A reading which, more than others, expresses a meaning apt for fostering piety

(especially monastic piety), is suspect.

7. A reading is to be preferred to others wherein lurks a sense apparently indeedfalse but which, when the thing is more carefully examined, is found to be true.

8. Among several readings for one passage, that reading is deservedly held to besuspect which, more than others, manifestly favors the dogmas of the orthodox.

For since most, not to say all, codices today surviving were completed by monks

and other men given to the Catholic party, it is not credible that they neglected in

the codex they were each writing out any reading whereby some dogma of the

Catholics seemed to be lucidly confirmed or heresy forcefully strangled. For we

know of certain readings, even manifestly false ones, provided only they

supported what was pleasing to the orthodox, that from the beginnings of the third

century were mordantly defended and sedulously propagated, while the remaining

2When I say copyists, both here and elsewhere, I wish to be understood critics as well as possessors of

codices who in their books, from which others were then written out, either changed the text itself or at any

rate inserted in the margin certain of their own remarks and emendations.


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readings of the same passage, which brought no support to ecclesiastical dogma,

were rashly attributed to the perfidy of heretics.

9. Since scribes were inclined to repeat at foreign points the same terminations ofwords and sentences which they had just written, or which, their eyes running

ahead of their pens, they foresaw were soon to be written, readings that are to be

explained very easily by a deception of the same pattern are of no value.

10.Similar to these inducements to error are others. Copyists, who had already readover the whole sentence before they began to write it, or were, while writing it,

looking with hasty eye at the model presented to them, often seized wrongly a

letter or syllable or word from what preceded or followed and thus forged new

readings. If, for instance, two neighboring words began from the same syllable or

letter, it not seldom happened that either the first was completely omitted or that

what was specific to the first was rashly attributed to the second. Such

hallucinations he will scarcely avoid who is devoting himself to writing out a

somewhat more verbose little book, unless he applies his whole mind to the task,

a thing which few copyists seem to have done. Readings, therefore, which flowed

from this fount of error, however ancient they may be and as a result suffused into

many books, are rightly rejected, especially if codices otherwise cognate are

discovered to be pure of contagion from this fault.

11.Among the several readings of the same passage that reading is preferable whichlies as a sort of mean between the rest, that is, the one which so contains the

threads as it were of all the rest that, with it admitted as primitive so to say, one


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may easily see by what reason, or rather by what sort of error, all the rest might

have sprung forth from it.

12.Let readings be rejected that smell of gloss or interpretation, which sort ofinterpolations the critic will sniff out with no effort of his more cleanly wiped

nose.

13.Critics teach, with considerable agreement, that readings are to be rejected whichhave been imported into the text from the commentaries of the Fathers or from

ancient scholia. But to this precept there are several caveats which have not been

sufficiently noted by those who declare that interpolations, only not all, are to be

principally derived from this source, and not only in the Greek codices, even the

most ancient, namely our codices ABCDL, but maintain that into the old Latin

version too the innumerable corruptions on any page of it whatever have been

inserted from the Fathers and the Greek scholia. But what I myself think of this

general cause I will briefly expound:

a. I grant that no codex, however ancient, is immune from interpretations andglosses.

b. I confess too (a thing which Mill and other critics long ago perceived) thatnot a few corruptions of this kind have emanated from the commentaries

and compilations of the Fathers written in the margin of many codices.

c. I warrant that the younger codices have been especially deformed by thissort of blemish; but that the most ancient ones have been corrupted from

Chrysostom and the scholia today surviving one may be permitted to deny

until the contrary is proved (as no one has yet managed to do) by


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interpretations of no moment, which could to the reader be of scarcely any

use, to the neglect of others, more worthy by far of note, whereby not a

little light could really be brought to obscure places?

d. For this reason neither I do not think that those ancient codices have beencorrupted from the commentaries of Origen that we know of, although I

would not wish to enter on a denial that some things from this mans

notices, which are praised by the ancients and seem once to have overlain

the margins of the codices, had already in the most ancient times crept

everywhere into the text.

e. I grant that the text of the Greek codices furnished with scholia has beenvitiated here and there by these very scholia. A copyist who was rather a

little careless and who had the text and the scholia together before his

eyes, and was looking now at that and now at these, could very easily be

deceived so as to mix in with the text a reading of the scholia. For I judge

that the text was rarely interpolated by these of set decision. But however

that may be, you will seek in vain for manifest errors of this sort in our

oldest codices and ancient versions.

f. I confess that codices furnished with scholia often agree amongthemselves and that they are sometimes even consonant with our oldest

ones. But the cause of neither consensus is located in the intention of the

interpolators, who have, from similar reason, corrupted all these books

from the scholia. But first as to what concerns the agreement of codices

among themselves furnished with scholia, it is in no case so great that they


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agree in all readings of the text. The codices which have the same scholia

added, or to which the same commentary of Chrysostom or Theophylact

or Euthymius is attached, not seldom present discrepant readings of the

text. But I willingly concede that these books altogether belong to the

same family. Nevertheless almost all the codices into whose text

compilations and scholia have been diffused, even though they are diverse

from each other, do sufficiently border in close relationship on each other

and do exhibit a text that is not indeed altogether the same but yet very

similar and in many places at variance with the text of the younger rank

and file books. But the reason for this fact is not far to seek. For it is

evident that the scholiasts and later authors of compilations almost always

set in place as foundation the more ancient compilations of this sort and

built their new ones on top of these. Hence it has happened that for the

most part they have even retained the same text; whence, further, what

results is understood, that the codices furnished with scholia have

preserved many ancient readings which have disappeared from other

codices of the same era. Although, therefore, they labor under several

vices that are more or less proper to this family, to which, as happens, new

errors, whether by the carelessness or rashness of the copyists, have even

accrued, nevertheless by no means are these books, whose faults the critic

may easily remove, to be spurned, but are rather to be preferred to the

other rank and file ones. But as concerns the agreement of codices

furnished with scholia with our most ancient codices and versions which


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is evident however not in the general form of the text but only in

individual places the reason for this agreement is already manifest from

what we have just said. For the codices in which not a few ancient

readings survive cannot fail to agree in many things with the other ancient

witnesses.

g. They therefore err who think that from the agreement of, for example, thecodex Cantabrigiensis with the codices of the scholia they can force the

conclusion that the Cantabrigiensis has been interpolated from the scholia.

Those who make this determination ought to teach that the readings

common to both could not have arisen otherwise than in the scholia and

could not have migrated into the Cantabrigiensis from anywhere else than

from these scholia. But until this is confirmed by just arguments it does

not shame me to maintain the opinion opposite to it, namely that readings

of this sort became known to the authors of the scholia from books that

were ancient and in part similar to the Cantabrigiensis. Besides, if it can be

established by examples the most appropriate possible, which I scarcely

credit, that some readings, imported from the scholia or the commentaries

of the Fathers, have been admixed with our most ancient codices, very

little fresh help is to be expected therefrom for the discernment of genuine

readings. For several that are held to have crept into those books from the

scholia are so composed that they can scarcely deceive the experienced

critic. On the other hand, to say how it really is, those who proclaim that

so many readings have been imported into the text from the scholia are


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chiefly doing it, not to bring assistance to the sacred text (which no danger

threatens) or to be on guard lest it be vitiated by interpretations (easy to

diagnose) of this sort, but much more so that they may undermine the

authority of the most ancient and most excellent codices and extol rank

and file books.

14.We repudiate readings first arising in the lectionaries, which are very often addedat the beginnings of the assigned selection and sometimes also in the endings and

the middle of it for the sake of clarity (because supplementation from the

passages sequence was needed), and they cut short and alter that which, separated

from what precedes or what follows, would seem scarcely able to be understood

with sufficient correctness. However, in applying this canon there is need of

almost the same cautions as are in place in judging readings born from scholia.

For not all the discrepant readings met with in the lectionaries have sprung from

the Ecclesiastical use of assigned selections, but many have passed into the

lectionaries from the more ancient codices, displaying the complete context; nor

should the oldest codices, if they anywhere agree with the lectionaries, be held for

interpolations because of this consensus alone; but instead one must also examine

whether there are probable causes on account of which some reading might be

determined to have originally arisen in the selection, or could indeed with equal

right be attributed to the genius of the copyists who were writing out the complete

codices. For things which had necessarily to be supplemented at the beginning of

the assigned selections could, as serving for clarity, come into the mind of

copyists already of older age and be at once inserted by them in the text,


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especially if from the words with which the selection begins a new chapter as well

or a new lesson might begin.

15.Readings are to be condemned that have been brought from the Latin version intoGreek books. This rule, most certain and most true, the use of which however is

very rare when judging the readings of Greek codices, has been very badly abused

by learned men to diminish the trustworthiness not only of Graeco-Latin codices

but also of many others, even of books distinguished for age and excellence. For

as often as they found a reading, discrepant from the reading of the rank and file

books, in some Greek codex, which was in agreement with the Latin version, they

said that the codex was Latinizing. But mere consensus, unless other indications

are joined thereto, does not in any way argue that an interpolation has been made

from the Latin version. But I do not wish to repeat here the admonishments of

Semler, Woidius, and Michaelis for removing these unjust suspicions, or my own

disputations elsewhere on this matter (Symbol. Crit. tom. 1. p. 110). For now that

I have illustrated sufficiently, in accord with our brevity and counsel, those

matters whereby a reading, viewed by itself, is recognized to be a good one, I

must proceed now to the declaration of that on which the authority of witnesses

most especially depends.

Now trust is to be placed in witnesses on condition that they are not only suitable and

weighty but are also in agreement among themselves.

The weightinessor gravity of witnesses is judged partly from their age and partly

from other things that can secure for them trustworthiness and authority. The ageof


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witnesses is not solely nor principally to be judged from the antiquity of the parchments;

for in the fourteenth century, for example, an apograph from by far the oldest codex could

be made that would reproduce its exemplar with the greatest accuracy; while, on the other

hand, there arises even already in the fifth century, to which scarcely one or two of the

codices surviving today could be referred, another codex, beside the ancient and genuine

text, wherein not a few younger readings had crept into the place of the original ones.

Therefore the age of the text itself rather than that of the copyist is to be looked for. But

this is judged from the texts repeated agreement with other witnesses (first of all with the

translations and the Fathers) of whose age we have definite certainty, and from the

abundance of the sort of readings that, like ancient coinage, betray their age, as it were by

a certain verdigris, to skilled arbiters. However, one must hold on to the fact that codices

exist whose text is made up of ancient and of more recent readings, so that now these and

now those predominate. When it comes to use, therefore, caution is needed lest, on the

basis of a few readings, culled either by chance or by design, a judgment is passed about

the age of the whole text. Further, as to what concerns those things that confer greater

authority on witnesses, to this head we refer repeated agreement with other witnesses of

tested faithfulness and abundance of readings commendable for their native goodness.

But, next, this is not so to be understood as if a codex, marred everywhere by a certain

type of vice, were altogether of no authority. For a text, otherwise very outstanding and

very ancient, could, in individual places, be interpolated from the lectionaries, nay even

from the Latin version; yet neither for this cause is it licit utterly to spurn it or to cast the

whole of it away. A codex of this sort has no validity in that type of reading which is

touched by suspicion of interpolation; in the rest it can carry great weight. Nevertheless,


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books marred a great deal by very many vices of various kinds, provided the basic text,

which interpolators have deformed, was ancient and good, may sometimes abound with

excellent readings to be met with in very few codices. Such a codex, indeed, is per se and

on its own of small and at any rate dubious value; but if a reading be outstandingly good,

and the votes of other old and weighty witnesses, although few, agree with it, the

consenting testimony of that codex ought in no way to be held as nothing.

Critics in addition advise that codices transcribed faithfully, carefully, diligently

by a skilled and learned copyist from a good and ancient exemplar are beyond others of

great importance in judging readings. But this precept cannot be applied in practice

without multiple cautions. For, first, from what codex another was transcribed we very

rarely know from anywhere else than from the character of the apograph. Next, a copyist

could have used an exemplar ancient and yet corrupt. Besides, the faithfulness of a

copyist, if indeed we are sufficiently certain about it, deserves altogether the highest

praise; but a codex copied down however faithfully, but from a recent and corrupt

exemplar, is of no value; while, on the contrary, a book written out by a scribe indulging

his extravagant genius too much in particular places and changing the text at will, clearly

does not have no authority. For you may easily discern places of this sort, corrupted by a

rather audacious copyist, if you call on other witnesses, especially the more ancient ones,

for assistance, and you may separate readings peculiar to that codex from the rest which

are common to several. Nevertheless such a codex should be held of great value if, from

definite indications, it can be inferred that the text, where the rash copyist has prowled,

proceeded from an exceedingly old and good exemplar.


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the same authority, although it be a little changed in its dress, and it always repeat the

same things, we do indeed hear an authority stable with itself, but we will be able to glory

very little in a consensus of witnesses. Yet the same accounts holds of the witnesses we

use in the business of criticism. Over a hundred Greek codices of the Gospelsare extant,

derived from one and the same common source, and they are (if you except writing

errors, omissions because of homoeoteleuton, glosses picked up from the margin, and

changes in words that are synonymous) for that reason harmonious in almost every

syllable.4He who cried up the consonance of these for a consensus of so many witnesses

could enumerate six hundred codices even of the Vulgate version as so many witnesses

that confirm a certain reading. But as this version is held for a single authority alone and

individual exemplars are examined only with this intention, to open up a way in for

establishing the primitive reading of this translation, so the same is valid also for the

Greek codices which are conjoined among themselves by the bond of a closer kinship.

Therefore all those codices whose testimony we use in judgment of the sacred text should

be rightly separated into their classes. But in the discriminating and arranging of classes

account should principally be taken of the different recensions of the sacred text.

That several recensionsof the text of theNew Testamentexisted in ancient times,

and still survive in the codices, versions, and asseverations of the Fathers, will not seem

strange to any one who is not unaware that in very many of the books, both manuscripts

and editions, even of pagan authors, Greek and Latin, the same thing has long been

noticed by the most learned critics, nay more, referred to by the same term that we are

4A heap of codices, written in more recent centuries at Constantinople and its vicinities, are of little value

even if they be disseminated throughout all Europe and beyond. A whole class of documents, from which

various readings can be collected and decided, are divided into as it were two nations, the Asiatic and the

African. If there were not so few ancient Greek exemplars from Africa, the excellence of which is greatly

overcome in mere number by the Asiatic crowd, it would be permitted to rely a little more on the plurality

of codices. Bengel, ibid., P. IV., num. 4., sect. 31


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using. We request beginners, desirous of learning what the difference is between several

recensions of the same book, to contrast the first Erasmian edition of theNew Testament

with the Complutensian, or, if this seem too troublesome, or an example is demanded that

is sufficiently obvious even to duller eyes, to compare Bengels edition of theApocalypse

with the Elsevir edition or the Curcellaean or the Maastricht edition. He who wants three

or four recensions of the same book, now agreeing and now disagreeing among

themselves, let him turn over the Complutensian, the Aldine, the Roman, and the Grabian

editions of the Septuagint version of the OldTestament, or, if these be not to hand, let him

attack Hornemans Specimen Secundum Exercitationum Criticarum in Versionem LXX

Interpretum,Haunia, 1776, where he will find, displayed in a synoptic table, a collection

of varying readings from those editions. The origin of the various recensions of the text

of theNew Testament, in the absence of documents and testimonies sufficiently old,

cannot historically be explained, nor does it belong in this place to make good the defect

with conjectures. But that there existed already two recensions at least by the beginning

of the third century is manifest from a collation of loci of the New Testamentin Greek

praised by Origen with the asseverations of Tertullian and Cyprian. For these assume a

Greek text different in its whole manner and universal complexion from that which

Origen used and already before him Clement of Alexandria. Theformertext usually

agrees with the Graeco-Latin codices, with the books of the Latin version before Jerome,

and (in the GospelofMatthew) with the very old Vatican B and with codices 1, 13, 69,

113, 124, 131, 157 and the Sahidic and Syro-Jerusalem versions; the latterusually agrees

with codices CL 33, 102, 106 of the Gospelsand (in the final chapters ofMatthew, in

Mark,Luke, andJohn) with Vatican B, with the Coptic (to wit, the Memphitic), Ethiopic,


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Armenian, Syrian, Philoxenian versions and with the asseverations of Eusebius,

Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, Isidore of Pelusium, and others. This latter text which,

after Clement and Origen, the Alexandrians and Egyptians especially used and

disseminated you would not improperly callAlexandrian. The other, used from the time

of Tertullian by the Africans, Italians, Gauls, and others in the West, could not unsuitably

be distinguished by the name of Western, although it did not at all confine itself within

the boundaries of the Western Empire, as is clearly apparent from the agreement, though

not continuous yet nevertheless frequent, of the Syrian, Jerusalem, and Sahidic versions.

From each of these two very ancient recensions in the Gospels, of which alone I am here

speaking, the text of codex A differs, now agreeing with the Alexandrian ones, now with

the Western, now with both at once, but very often also disagreeing from both, and

coming a little closer to our vulgar text. With this codex the codices EFGHS are cognate,

but deformed by several more recent readings, and they are much closer than A to the

vulgar text. All these (AEFGHS) seem to agree in the Gospels generally with those

Fathers (as far as one may gather from the imperfect collations of them) who flourished

at the close of the fourth century and in the fifth and sixth centuries in Greece, Asia

Minor, and the neighboring provinces, and this recension, which from the following fact

we may name the Constantinopolitan, was especially propagated in the patriarchate of

Constantinople and thereafter disseminated far and wide by innumerable copyists, and

was even transfused into the Slavonic version (the codices of which, however, are

themselves not seldom in mutual disagreement). To none of these recensions is the Syriac

version similar (so far indeed as it has been printed), but neither is it altogether dissimilar

to any. In many cases it is in accord with the Alexandrian recension, in several with the


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Western, in some even with the Constantinopolitan, but in such a way that it repudiates

most of what was eventually imported into this last in later centuries. At diverse times,

therefore, it seems to have been checked again and again against clearly diverse Greek

codices.5The text of the Gospels of Chrysostom is to this extent not unlike the Syriac

version, that it too draws something from different recensions. It admits certain things

from the Western recension, more from the Alexandrian, most from the

Constantinopolitan, but from an older form of it and one not yet deformed by later

interpolations; the reason for which mixture I suspect to have been located principally in

the fact that Chrysostom consulted or, if you prefer, compiled several commentaries of

previous interpreters which were fitted, not to one and the same text, but to texts varying

and discrepant among themselves. Besides, no one expert in these things could be caused

trouble by readings to be met with in the text and the interpretation of Chrysostom, which

were born of this mans negligence or his custom of enlivening the text rather a little

freely and expressing its sense, no matter how, in his own words. Besides codices that

exhibit one of these old recensions there are some extant whose text is conflated of

readings from two or three recensions; of which sort are the fragments of codices PQT,

which agree now with the Alexandrian codices and now with the Western ones. To this

class could also perhaps be referred those which we above attached, in their greater part,

to either the Alexandrian or Western ones, the codices 1, 13, 33, 69, 106, 118, 124, 131,

157, with the Ethiopic, Armenian, Sahidic, Syro-Jerusalem versions and the margin of the

Philoxenian. For in all these are admixed Alexandrian readings with Western ones and

5This fact can be illustrated by the example of certain Latin codices which reproduce a version, certainly

early, fitted to the Western recension but everywhere reworked in view of younger Greek books. Of this

sort is the Brixian Latin codex which not seldom is the only one that departs from all the Graeco-Latin and

older Latin codices and passes over to the side of the Greek ones.


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vice versa. But there are also some codices in which, if you regard the universal form of

the text, Constantinopolitan readings indeed are regnant, sprinkled however with more or

fewer readings, whether Alexandrian or Western, to which belong the codices (to be

removed from the number of the rank and file ones albeit not all endowed with the same

authority): KM, 10, 11, 17, 22, 28, 36, 40, 57, 61, 63, 64, 72, 91, 108, 127, 142, 209, 229,

235, and theBooksofGospels18, 19, 24, 36.

But so what we have said about discriminating diverse recensions may more

safely be transferred to the judgment of readings, either proper to one recension or

common to several, it seems not inexpedient to give the reader advice about certain

things that pertain to this cause.

a) The critic should, with constant attention, hold as a thing known and evident whatthe things are whereby any recension surpasses or is inferior to the rest. The

Western recension for instance is wont to preserve genuine readings that are

harder, abhorrent to the nature of the Greek language, Hebraizing, ungrammatical,

ill sounding which of course would less offend any Western readers; but the

Alexandrian recension studies to avoid and change whatever could be annoying to

Greek ears. The Western recension tries with interpretations, circumlocutions,

additions hunted out from everywhere, transpositions of words and sentences, to

render the sense clearer and less inaccessible; but the Alexandrian strives to

highlight phrases and words rather than the sense. The Western recension loves

readings indeed that are fuller and more verbose and loves also supplements

begged from parallel places; but it also sometimes omits things which seem to

render the sentence obscure or repugnant to the context or to other places; in all


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these matters the Alexandrian is wont to be more chaste. In a word, the

Alexandrian censor has acted the grammarian, the Western the interpreter. But the

latter often enough has unhappily administered the province of interpreter, and

handled the text much more freely than was lawful; but he is not to be denied the

praise of sagacity. For not seldom, for example in the history of the resurrection of

the Lord, he has sniffed out difficulties and apparent inconsistencies which most

commentators, not noticing the snake hidden in the grass, have walked over

dryfoot, but which our age has at last more carefully judged. In all these matters

we have just touched on the Constantinopolitan recension is wont to work with

the Alexandrian, being diverse from it in this respect alone, that it is still more

studious of Graecisms, admits several glosses into the text, and everywhere mixes

in Western readings either dissonant from the Alexandrian ones or conflated from

the Alexandrian and Western. He who desires to adjudicate the authority of

witnesses alleged for each reading should have observations of this sort ready to

hand. For the importance of each recension is diverse for diverse kinds of

readings. In one kind the Western recension should have more weight, in another

kind the Alexandrian.

b) No recension in any codex still surviving is found as it originally was withouttaint. In the interval of time which has intervened between the origins of

recensions and the births of the codices today extant, the individual codices of all

recensions have been corrupted in many places. Each copyist in writing down his

apograph committed a number of errors; new interpretations, glosses, additions

crept in from the margin or elsewhere; the negligent and hasty scribe everywhere


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omitted certain things; readings from another recension were brought into books

of another family, etc. Therefore in the fifth and sixth centuries, codices of, for

example, the Alexandrian recension could not fail to be different in many places

from the primitive Alexandrian text as it had been at the beginning of the third

century. But since these sort of corruptions have in no way invaded all the codices

of the same recension but only deformed individual ones, it is evident not only

that the reasoning of those is unsound who attribute the vices found in one codex

universally to a certain recension, but it is also understood

c)

that it is of very great moment that the original reading of each recension be

searched out. The codices and the Fathers and all the versions displaying the same

recension must certainly be compared, and that reading must be selected from the

readings to be met with in them which both the older witnesses and the intrinsic

marks of goodness commend above the rest. The primitive readings in the

Gospelsindeed of the Alexandrian recension are dug up for the most part by easy

labor when the codices CL and (inMark,Luke, andJohn) B agree, especially if

Clement or Origen along with the Coptic version and the other Alexandrian ones

concur. It is a matter of a little deeper investigation to recognize the original

reading of the Western recension, since fewer ancient witnesses, and these more

corrupted, survive from this family. Where the Western codices, therefore,

disagree among themselves, judgment must be made above all from internal

criteria as to which one from the several readings is to be held for original. But

when the primeval reading in some recension has become known, it is to be


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attributed to this recension viewed in its generality, and the other readings

neglected that have been imported into some of the codices of the same recension.

d) Before it can be defined which of several readings is genuine, one must considerto what recension any reading is to be referred; nor do we particularly ask how

many codices today surviving agree in some reading, but we study especially to

hunt out how many ancient recensions originally had that reading. For all the

witnesses whatever in agreement with themselves that pertain to the same

recension ought to be held for a single authority. Therefore in practice it can

happen that two or three codices have the same value as a hundred others. For

some ancient recensions survive in no more than a few codices, others have

overtaken innumerable handwritten books. In the Western provinces after the

fourth century, and in Egypt after the sixth, very few Greek codices were written

out; but in the patriarchate of Constantinople, on the other hand, Greek monks

paid untiring attention to multiplying exemplars of theNewTestamentright up to

the fifteenth century.

e) A reading in which all the ancient recensions had primitively agreed is indubitablytrue, even if another reading afterward invaded as many younger codices as

possible.

f) If all the recensions have not primitively agreed in the same reading, that readingis superior which is supported by the votes of the older ones, unless the advice we

gave above, under a), about the genius of individual recensions stands in the way.

g) From the consensus of the Alexandrian recension with the Western it is mostfirmly collected that the reading common to both is by far the most ancient; nay


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more, if it shines with its own internal goodness at the same time, it is genuine.

But if a reading of this sort seem destitute of internal criteria of truth, the

importance of these criteria is to be carefully weighed, so that it may appear

whether the lack of them has more weight than the consenting testimony of the

Alexandrian and Western recension.

h) If the Alexandrian recension agrees with the Constantinopolitan, but the Westerndiffers from both, one must inquire whether the Western reading is of the sort

where this recension is wont more often to go wrong, and at the same time the

internal marks of the true and false are to be diligently weighed.

i) A similar reasoning is to be used in adjudicating readings in which the Westernrecension agrees with the Constantinopolitan against the Alexandrian.

j) [non datur]k) If some recension exhibits a reading discrepant from the readings of the remaining

recensions, in no way does the number of the individual witnesses but the internal

criteria of goodness determine what reading is to be preferred to the rest. We

embrace, therefore, the outstandingly good reading even if supported by the votes

of very few witnesses, provided it can be shown that it is the primitive reading of

some ancient recension no matter which, nor does the singular condition of that

recension stand in the way, note a) above.

Having now expounded the things which the critic ought to attend to in judging the

consensus of witnesses because of the fact that the witnesses of the sacred text do not set


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up the same recension,6let me add, in three words: one should direct ones attention also

to that distinction of witnesses whereby some are handwritten books, some authors of

versions, others the Fathers enlivening places of theNewTestament. We confer the first

place indeed on the handwritten codices, nor do we easily approve a reading reliant only

on the trustworthiness of the versions and the Fathers. But yet an exceedingly good

reading, found in very many versions and the Fathers, provided it be supported by the

consensus of some ancient and outstanding codices, however few you like, is in no way

to be spurned, especially if those codices are descended from diverse recensions.

Finally I deem it necessary to be kept in mind that some codices are conflated

from parts by far very different. For example the Alexandrian codex follows one

recension in the Gospels, another in the PaulineEpistles, another in theActsofthe

Apostlesand the CatholicEpistles. Thus the Vatican codex also works with the Western

ones in the earlier part of the GospelofMatthew, but in the last chapters ofMatthew, and

inMark,Luke, andJohn, it agrees with the Alexandrian. To mixed codices of this sort the

critic ought honestly to attend in judging the consensus of witnesses.

6Some things which I have been able to touch on in very few words in this place, I have declared a little

more copiously inDissert. De codicibus Evangeliorum Origenianis, Halle 1771, and in Curis in historiam

textus epistolarum Paulinarum graeci, Jena 1777.

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Griesbachnow Peter L. P. Simpson