CHAPTER XI (continued).

CAUSES OF CORRUPTION CHIEFLY INTENTIONAL.

VI. SUBSTITUTION.

§ 4.

[ALL the Corruption in the Sacred Text may be classed under four heads, viz. Omission, Transposition, Substitution, and Addition. We are entirely aware that, in the arrangement adopted in this Volume for purposes of convenience, Scientific Method has been neglected. The inevitable result must be that passages are capable of being classed under more heads than one. But Logical exactness is of less practical value than a complete and suitable treatment of the corrupted passages that actually occur in the four Gospels.

It seems therefore needless to supply with a scrupulousness that might bore our readers a disquisition upon Substitution which has not forced itself into a place amongst Dean Burgon’s papers, although it is found in a fragmentary plan of this part of the treatise. Substituted forms or words or phrases, such as ΟC (ὅς) for θ̄c̄ (Θεός)³⁴⁵³⁴⁵    See the very learned, ingenious, and satisfactory disquisition in The Revision Revised, pp. 424-501. ἡπόρει for ἐποίει (St. Mark vi. 20), or εὐκ οἴδατε δοκιμάζειν for δοκιμάζετε (St. Luke xii. 56), have their own special causes of substitution, and are naturally and best considered under the cause which in each case gave them birth.

Yet the class of Substitutions is a large one, if Modifications, as they well may be, are added to it³⁴⁶³⁴⁶    The numbers are:— B, substitutions, 935; modifications, 1,132; total, 2,067. א ” 1,114; ” 1,265; ” 2,379. D, ” 2,121; ” 1,772; ” 3,893.
   Revision Revised, pp. 12, 13.. It will be readily concluded that some substitutions are serious, some of less importance, and many trivial. Of the more important class, the reading of ἁμαρτήματος for κρίσεως (St. Mark iii. 29) which the Revisers have adopted in compliance with אBLΔ and three Cursives, is a specimen. It is true that D reads ἁμαρτίας supported by the first corrector of C, and three of the Ferrar group (13, 69, 346) and that the change adopted is supported by the Old Latin versions except f, the Vulgate, Bohairic, Armenian, Gothic, Lewis, and Saxon. But the opposition which favours κρίσεως is made up of A, C under the first reading and the second correction, ΦΣ and eleven other Uncials, the great bulk of the Cursives, f, Peshitto, and Harkleian, and is superior in strength. The internal evidence is also in favour of the Traditional reading, both as regards the usage of ἔνοχός, and the natural meaning given by κρίσεως. Ἁμαρτήματος has clearly crept in from ver. 28. Other instances of Substitution may be found in the well-known St. Luke xxiii. 45 (τοῦ ἡλίου ἐκλιπόντος), St. Matt. xi. 27 (βούληται ἀποκαλύψαι), St. Matt. xxvii. 34 (οἶνον for ὄξος), St. Mark i. 2 (Ἠσαΐᾳ for τοῖς προφήταις), St. John i. 18 (ὁ Μονογένης Θεός being a substitution made by heretics for ὁ Μονογένης Υἱός), St. Mark vii. 31 (διὰ Σιδῶνος for καὶ Σιδῶνος). These instances may perhaps suffice: many more may suggest themselves to intelligent readers. Though most are trivial, their cumulative force is extremely formidable. Many of these changes arose from various causes which are described in many other places in this book.]