The Christology of the Textus Receptus

In Distinction

From the Christology of the So-Called Better Manuscripts of Westcott

and HortBeing a Comparative Investigation into the Textus

Receptus and its Christology in Distinction from the Westcott-Hort Polluted Texts and Their Downgrader

Mythological Christology

Displaying some Reasons for Rejecting the Constantine-Eusebius Family of Polluted Texts and their

Nicenian Downgrader Mythological Christology

He (Tischendorf REP) received the primary sources, containing the complete New Testament as well as two apocryphal books. Neither Codex Vaticanus, nor Codex Alexandrinus had the full text of the New Testament. Moreover, the manuscript turned out to be older than the two codices known before! The discovery contained the majority of the Old Testament books and also The Epistle. (This is false, the Codex Sin. in its earliest form is no older than the fourth century, and its present and corrected form, is no older than the twelfth century; REP)

Tischendorf was congratulated on his success by European monarchs and the Pope himself. He was granted hereditary nobility in Russia.

by

More than One

Isa 59:21 As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out

of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.

2009Important Christological Verses

18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. Textus Receptus from the Greek Textus Receptus

18 yeon oudeiv ewraken pwpote monogenhv yeov o wn eiv ton kolpon tou patrov ekeinov exhghsato Westcott-Hort Corruption, only begotten God;

yetsa wh yhwbad abweb yhwtyad wh ahla aydyxy Mwtmm sna azx al ahla 18 Peshitta, Syrian, Based upon the corrupted Constantine-Eusebius text, only Begotten Elohem (God);

18 yeon oudeiv ewraken pwpote o monogenhv uiov o wn eiv ton kolpon tou patrov ekeinov exhghsato;, Greek Textus Receptus; the only Begotten Son

18 Deum nemo vidit umquam unigenitus Filius qui est in sinu Patris illi exposuit. Bezae Latin Received Text; only begotten son.

Section IV.

119 No man hath seen God at any time; the only Son, God,23 which is in the bosom of his Father, he hath told of him. The Diatessaron of Tatian, about A.D. 170.

Here are several quotes from various versions:

John 1:18

The Geneva Bible (1587) No man hath seene God at any time: that onely begotten Sonne, which is in the bosome of the Father, he hath declared him. Tyndale New Testament (1526) No ma hath sene God at eny tyme. The only begotte sonne which is in ye bosome of ye father he hath declared him. The Wycliffe Bible (1395) No man sai euer God, no but the `oon bigetun sone, that is in the bosum of the fadir, he hath teld out. The Latin Vulgate (425) Deum nemo vidit umquam unigenitus Filius qui est in sinu Patris ipse enarravit (It is

2

strange here that Jerome did not follow Origen’s corruptions, but used the word SON or Filius REP) The Bishop's Bible (1568) No man hath seene God at any tyme: The onely begotten sonne which is in the bosome of the father, he hath declared hym. Miles Coverdale Bible (1535) No man hath sene God at eny tyme. The onely begotte sonne which is in the bosome of the father, he hath declared the same vnto vs. Textus Receptus (1611) No man hath seene God at any time: the onely begotten Sonne, which is in the bosome of the Father, he hath declared him.

http://www.gnosis.org/library/fragh.htm

Fragment 3, on John 1:18 The words, “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” (John 1:18), were spoken, not by the Baptist, but by the disciple.

Here is an enlarged quote from Heracleon’s commentary on John, a Gnostic writer and a disciple of Valentius formerly of Rome.

Fragments from a Commentary on the Gospel of John by Heracleon:

Fragments preserved in Origen's Commentary on John:

Fragment 1, on John 1:3 (In John 1:3, “All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made.”) The sentence: "All things were made through him" means the world and what is in it. It excludes what is better than the world. The Aeon (i.e. the Fullness), and the things in it, were not made by the Word; they came into existence before the Word. . . “Without him, nothing was made” of what is in the world and the creation. . . "All things were made through Him," means that it was the Word who caused the Craftsman (Demiurge) to make the world, that is it was not the Word “from whom” or “by whom,” but the one “through whom (all things were made).”. . . It was not the Word who made all things, as if he were energized by another, for "through whom" means that another made them and the Word provided the energy.

Fragment 2, on John 1:4 In the saying, “What was made in him was Life" (John 1:4), ‘in him’ means ‘for spiritual people.’ For he (the Word) provided them with their first form at their birth, in that what had been sown by another he brought to form, illumination and into an outline of its own, and set it forth.

3

Fragment 3, on John 1:18 The words, “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” (John 1:18), were spoken, not by the Baptist, but by the disciple. Fragment 4, on John 1:21 (In John 1:21, “And they asked him, ‘What then? Are you Elijah?’ He said, ‘I am not.’ ‘Are you the prophet?’ And he answered, ‘No.’) John acknowledged that he was not the Christ, and neither a prophet, nor Elijah.

The first known Gospel commentary was a commentary on the Gospel of John written around 170 AD. Heracleon, a disciple of Valentinus, who was a prominent Gnostic Christian, authored it. Heracleon was one of the most important Biblical exegetes of his day. His writings were carefully read by “orthodox” theologians such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria. (From the same Gnostic source site as I have already given. REP)

Note how that Origen, originally of Alexandria then Caesarea, and Clement of Alexandria, preserved these ancient Gnostic writings. These men had strong Gnostic roots. The Gnostics received much from Justin Martyr who was the first Christian writer I have found who taught the Begotten God concept. However, the Gnostics did not use the Only Begotten God text, and Origen used both and his later disciple, Eusebius of Caesarea, the historian and developer of Constantine's new Bibles, made the Begotten God text into official law in the Constantine-Eusebius Bibles for the Holy Roman Empire.

Strange is the background of the Westcott-Hort text. See the work entitled New Age Bible Versions.

Also surf the www and find the site dealing with the Ghostly Guild (?).

4

Table of Contents

Some Very Interesting Statements

Introduction A- The Historical Succession of the Ancient Texts unto the Present

Introduction B- The Theological Introduction

Introduction C- The So-Called Disputed Passages and the Major Disputed Passage, John 1:18

The General Introduction

Chapter 1 Stating the Issue

Chapter 2 Origin of the Begotten God Concept

Chapter 3 Old Syriac

Chapter 4 Old Italic

Chapter 5 Codex Sinaiticus

Chapter 6 Codex Vaticanus

Chapter 7 Codex Alexandrinus

Chapter 8 Codex Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus

Chapter 9 Origin of the “Holy Catholic Church”

Chapter 10 Constantine-Eusebius Bibles

Chapter 11 Priscilianists

Chapter 12 Southern France

Chapter 13 John 1:18 in the Textus Receptus

Chapter 14 The Nature of Christ’s Deity

Chapter 15 Exposing the Mythology of the Westcott- Hort Bible

Chapter 16 Exposing the Tractarianism Movement

Chapter 17 Exposing the Oxford Movement During the Downgrader Era

Chapter 18 Standing Firm on the Textus Receptus Christology

Conclusion The Biblical Trinity and Christology with Supporting Texts

5

Some Very Interesting Statements

Concerning the Sinaiticus;

He (Tischendorf REP) received the primary sources, containing the complete New Testament as well as two apocryphal books. Neither Codex Vaticanus, nor Codex Alexandrinus had the full text of the New Testament. Moreover, the manuscript turned out to be older than the two codices known before! The discovery contained the majority of the Old Testament books and also The Epistle.

Tischendorf was congratulated on his success by European monarchs and the Pope himself. He was granted hereditary nobility in Russia.

The most important contribution of the scientist is the comparison of four manuscripts: Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Peresianus and Codex Vaticanus. By doing so Tischendorf proved that the New Testament of the modern Bible reached present time in its true value. However, the Ecumenical Council at Nicea had already approved the Canonical Gospels by that time. That is why it did not lead to any disturbance of the apologists of Christianity. http://www.aramaicpeshitta.com/old_syriac.htm

Questions

Question 1, since no one has the first Greek texts how did Tischendorf prove this? Hum, I wonder?

Question 2, since there are no original Greek New Testament Texts how did the Nicea Council know which Canonical Gospels to approve?

Is not such an unfounded statement the result of egotistical assumption rather than scientific evaluation? Should we not conclude that men like Tischendorf, Westcott, Hort, and even Constantine and Eusebius, tried to assume Pope like power in giving us their idea of the Original Greek New Testament?

No Original New Testament Role Model

It would seem that if we are going to say that the Constantine-Eusebius Bibles represented the entire Greek New Testament in its original form, then we should have a role model by which to measure all Text Canons? No original role model exists. The issue is a faith issue, not a scientific issue. What Think Ye of Christ? Is He a Begotten God, or a Self-Existent Divine Being? But, why do we need the original Manuscripts? Has not God preserved His words among the various and succeeding translations? Certainly He has. I have not found any writer during the early Christian period wanting to prove any doctrine by the inspired, original Scriptures. Rather, the early Christian writers quoted their versions of the Scriptures because they were the Words of God . We need not the original Scriptures because we have the faithful and true translations from those original Scriptures preserved and maintained by the Lord God Himself.

The Divine Inspiration and Preservation of the Words of God

6

Do we believe in the Divine Inspiration of the Words of God, and if we do, do we also believe in the Divine Preservation of the Words of God? The answer to both of these questions should be YES! Will you be shocked to realize that the majority of those who promote the Constantine-Eusebius or Westcott-Hort Bibles really do not believe in the Inspiration of the Words of God and their Divine Preservation?

Isa 59:21 As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.

Mt 24:35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

7

Historical Introduction

As we enter into the maze of issues surrounding the Which Bible controversy, we encounter many different and strange people with very unusual opinions. Perhaps the strangest are those who follow the Oxford movement’s Westcott-Hort texts. They tell us strange, odd and curious things like we should reject the historic Textus Receptus and the Christ honoring text because their Bible is from better and more reliable texts. They tell us that their texts more closely resemble the original Greek manuscripts. We find this strange because there are no ancient and original Greek Manuscripts so how do they know they have superior and better texts that more closely resemble the originals?

Are the WH Texts Better and More Reliable

Do the Westcott-Hort Textual families provide better and more reliable manuscripts? I do not believe so. In fact, I consider them among the worst of all the Greek texts used in the Which Bible controversy. How do I arrive at that conclusion? I have come to this conclusion not by comparing some large data banks with or against each other. But, rather, by noting the texts that more glorify Jesus Christ in the fullness of His complex person, His Divine and Manly natures.

2Jo 1:9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.

2Jo 1:10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:

When we evaluate the Which Bible controversy by the texts that best glorify Jesus Christ, there is no doubt which Bible we should be using, the old reliable Textus Receptus. I am not a King James onlyist, but I am a Textus Receptus onlyist, in both the ancient old Italic and the Greek textual families.

Consulting the Disputed Texts

As we consult the so-called disputed passages, those contained in the TR and those omitted in the W-H textual family, most of the time we really do not get the entire overview of the question because the most disputed text in earliest times is not even involved in the discussions. This is John 1:18. Very few textual historians and critics in our generation even know that the W-H texts render John 1:18 incorrectly. The W-H texts teach that Jesus is a begotten god in His deity. The Textus Receptus teaches that He is a begotten son. Compare John 1:18 and then ask yourself this question: Is Jesus a begotten God, and therefore not self-existent and equal with the Father in the Divine Attributes, or His He a Begotten Son? It is that simple.

Position of this Treatise

This treatise investigates this question by looking at it from many different sources. In His Divine Nature, as God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ is a self-existent Divine Being and Immutable. However, this is not the Christology presented in the Westcott-Hort Textual families. They have the begotten god verse in their textual families for a reason. Their text contains this to validate the Nicene Creed.

This small treatise explains why this has been done. As late as the final decade of the 1800s Bible scholars were well aware of the disputes and history of the controversy over John 1:18. But due to several reasons this is not true in our age. To give a very good overview of this question please consult Dean Burgon’s classic work, The Causes of the

8

Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels, and read carefully his treatment of John 1:18 in its historical overview.

Greek Mythology

The begotten god concept comes from Greek mythology. In brief I here will give an historical account of how and why the begotten god concept is in the W-H textual families. The deciding factor in the Which Bible issue is simply this, as is true of all other issues and questions, WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST?

The Existence of Several Problems

I freely and openly grant and admit that there are several problems no matter which side of the controversy we take. The reasons for this are complex, but we can sort them out and come to some basic conclusions. In these next few pages of this historical introduction, I shall attempt to do that.

Not About the Trinity Controversy

Before doing that let me note that this treatise is not about the Trinity, or the well beloved proper text of the Three Heavenly Witness in I John 5:7, found in the King James Version and Textus Receptus manuscripts, both Greek and old Latin, but rather it deals with Christology. Properly speaking very few of the early writers whom the Catholics have allowed to pass through to us, were what we would call Biblical Trinitarians. They have been a mixture of Bini-tarians, Nicenists, Sabellians or Semi-Arians. In most colleges and seminaries Sabellianism or Modalism is the standard definition for the Trinity. I am not going to deal with this issue, but suggest interested students secure Brother Michael Maynard’s matchless and exhaustive treatment of this issue in his accurate work entitled The Debate Over I John 5:7-8.

A Brief Overview

I will now present a brief overview of how the Begotten God text has become so popular in our modern, but corrupted Bibles of Christianity. This is a brief plea for the true and proper usage of the historic Latin or Old Italic text and its influence upon our blessed Textus Receptus.

The Destruction of Jerusalem

There are several important epic events in the history of our Bibles and these have all influenced the controversy over John 1:18. I will now give some of these.

The Destruction of Jerusalem played a very important part in the overview of textual history. As the Romans surrounded Jerusalem ready to overtake it, Christians fled to many places taking their prized Sacred Manuscripts with them. Various Jewish groups fled to the Mountains taking their various Sacred Texts with them. Many Christians went to Antioch and formed the Gentile Church there. The Gentile Church at Antioch became a center for Christian learning and proper Biblical translations.

Antiochian Translations

Translations from Antioch are important factors in the Which Bible controversy. Yes, as always, there are questions dealing with this, but no more than any other part of the history of Biblical manuscripts. Contemporary evidence is pointing to the importance of the Antioch Church in translating the two oldest Biblical textual families that we yet know about, the old Syrian and the old Italic. The Gentiles Christians, most probably from Antioch, completed these translations by about 135 AD. I deal with this largely in each respective chapter.

9

The Old Syrian

Before long the Old Syrian text became corrupted and passed from our concern. What wehave today are newer Syrian Texts that have been made to conform to the Bibles of Constantine-Eusebius. This is all that we need to say about the Old Syrian texts. It matters not if we deal with the Old Syrian or the Peshitta texts. The result is still the same.

The Old Italic

The Old Italic texts did not meet with the same end as the old Syrian Texts. As the Old Italic texts passed from Antioch into Northern Africa and then into the Western parts of the Roman Empire, they soon reached Rome and gradually replaced the Greek Texts even then used at Rome.

Attempted Corruptions

In the process of time both the so-called Orthodox and the so-called heretics tried to corrupt these old manuscripts. The hotbeds for this corruption were Alexandria, Egypt and Palestine. In its earliest stages the old Latin escaped these corruptions and we have proof in the Ante-Fathers citing of the old texts that the Latin Fathers, as they were called, used the same textual family as many of the Greek Fathers did. This shows the early passing of the original Greek into the Old Italic Texts. By using the Ante-Nicene Fathers we can almost produce the entire texts of the Old Greek and Latin Bibles of that era. God has preserved His Inspired Words by this and other means.

Justin Martyr

When Justin Martyr debated with the Jew, Trypho, he used a Greek text that we do not have today, except in these early writings. In this debate Justin used many passages from the Psalms that are only know to us by the writings of the Greek and Latin Fathers.

Tertullian and Cyprian

However, this same Greek text went into Latin and when men such as Tertullian and Cyprian, Latin writers, debated their views of the Trinity, they cited the Latin version of this Greek text that Justin used. We can note this by comparing the writings of Justin, Tertullian and Cyprian.

Pagan Persecutions

Roman Pagan Persecutions also played a very important part in the destruction of the early Greek manuscripts. By reading early Church Historians such as Eusebius we can see how that the Romans murdered early Christians and burned down their meeting houses. Often the Romans placed as many Biblical texts as they could find in these fires. Church houses burned with their precious Bible texts in the same fires. This produces a sever shortage of the Greek Manuscripts. This shortage was overcome different ways. One was to use the old Latin texts to reproduce the Greek texts. Another was to bring secret texts out of hiding and copy them. In this process errors occurred. The early writers such as Origin and others often complied about the errors and careless manner of the copyists. Yet, the process went on.

In the Western World

In the Western world faithful Christians secured the Old Italic texts and guarded them with their very lives. They trusted faithful men and women to copy and circulate these old texts. In the process of time another epic occurred. I will now deal with it in brief.

10

Jerome-Lucian II

The Roman Catholic Bishop at Rome commissioned Jerome to produce a uniform Latin Text. This is much like Constantine and Eusebius and the Greek Texts nearly a century before. Jerome complained about this and tried to be a good martyr and did what he considered his best. He had an agenda and sought to discredit the Greek texts from Antioch under the leadership of the pre-Arian scholar, Lucian II. According to Jerome these Antiochian texts were too polluted to be used in any way. This widened the gap between the Antiochian and the Alexandrian-Palestine texts that Jerome would use to help in his formation of the best and most favorable Latin text he wanted to produce. But in this process he encountered the ire of yet another scholar in Northern Africa, Augustine.

Augustine-Jerome

Augustine used the Antiochian texts. These two men fought back and forth over the texts they used. They each accused the other of using corrupted texts. Jerome won out and his Latin Bible soon became the official text of Constantine’s new church in the Western World. Augustine would not use the Jerome Bible.

Jerome’s Followers and Forced Biblical Conformity

This produced the following result, after Jerome died, his devoted followers went everywhere trying to find all the old Italic texts they could find and then forced them to conform to Jerome’s new Bible. This process went before in Syrian and then again in the Constantine-Eusebius Bibles. This would mean that the old Syrian, the old Greek and the Old Latin texts would receive special forced support by evil men with evil agendas as their motives. They would try to make the existing older texts conform to the newer Bibles of their teachers.

The Dissenters

Another epic is this conflict is the attitude of the Dissenters. Christ Jesus preserved His older texts and His pure word mainly among the Dissenters and their Old Italic Texts. These Dissenters would not use the corrupted texts of Rome, but used their older texts. The only times that both texts united was when the newer version of Jerome did not contradict with the older Italic texts. An example of this is the older Albigensian Bibles in southern France. I show this in the proper chapter.

Dissenters and their Nonconformity

Dissenting Christians not did believe in the Nicene Creed, they did not conform to the Catholic Church and they rejected the Bibles of Constantine-Eusebius. This even cost many their lives, but they did not waver in their faith and allegiance to Jesus Christ and the old texts. Many of the establish Imperialists often lied about the dissenters and tried to distort them and their views, and make them into the worst heretics and most evil men and women that that they could.

Priscillian

Priscillian is an example of this. Let me briefly note that He used an old Italic version that contained many, if not all of the disputed texts. He refused to conform to Constantine’s new church, his new creed or use his new Bibles. Please remember these are the same Bibles that Westcott and Hort reproduced. He became the first Christian that Constantine’s new church murdered. Of course, the Imperial ministers lied about him and tried to represent him as the worst heretic they could. However, the Lord God preserved many of his works and they show that he was not what the Imperials made him out to be. He used

11

the old Italic Text that contained the true and proper I John 5:7, and other disputed passages. This occurred near 385 AD in Spain. I have a chapter covering these events.

Southern France

Dissenting believers maintained the old Italic texts. Southern France became a seed ground for the free distribution of the old Italic. Many used the ancient old Italic Text and went into others parts of Europe, even reaching England and Wales, carrying the true gospel and the true old texts with them. Often times when Jerome’s Bible agreed with the Old Italic, it was joined with the Old Italic to form one united Text.

Other Usages of the Old Italic

The old Italic surfaced in the TEPL CODEX. The Old Italic was the foundational text for the pre-Luther German Bible and was used to help produce the old French and the old Waldensian Bibles and many others. Perhaps even Peter Waldo used this text as he and his friends produced countless translations for the common people as far east as the Baltic States.

The Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation became the next major epic event favorable to the Bible of the Dissenters. Many freedom loving dissenters continued to use the Old Italic. Interest in the ancient Greek language and texts arose. These old texts had almost vanished from the Western world under the stranglehold of the papacy and the Constantine-Eusebius Bibles. During the Protestant Reformation several men refused to use the Papal Bible. They wanted a more Christ honoring text. They produced the Textus Receptus in several different forms. This is no different from the other textual families. They all have variants and different textual forms.

Producing the Textus Receptus

Some dissenting scholars started gathering many of the old Greek texts and comparing them with the old Italic. The result was the Greek Textus Receptus. I readily admit there are many problems in the Textus Receptus just as in other textual families. There are many variants, even many thousands. The enemies of the TR have well supplied the various data banks with TR variants and apparent contradictions. However, these variants do not affect the theology and Christology of the Textus Receptus. The W-H texts try to present, alter, and change the teaching about the very nature of Christ in His deity. They try to present Christ as a Begotten God. All the variants and problems in the TR do not present Christ in a downgrader manner in any way. In fact such places as John 1:18, Acts 20:28, and I Tim. 3:15-16, are upgrading to Jesus Christ and His deity and manhood in the TR. This cannot be said about the W-H texts. They downgrade Jesus Christ and seek to present Him in a much different light than the old Italic texts and the Greek T R textual families do.

The Early English Translations

The early English Translations from the Textus Receptus maintained a true testimony to Jesus Christ, His deity, His Sonship and His Blood. These are the Tyndale Bible, the Bishop’s Bible, the Geneva Bible and of course the King James Bible. These translators studied and used several older and historic textual families, including the old Italic, to produce their respective versions. They produced Christ honoring versions that respect Christ’s true Deity, His Sonship and His blood.

12

Are they Really Better Texts?

So, are the W-H texts really better texts? How can they be when they down grade Jesus Christ and seek to represent Him as a Begotten God? They try to deny that His very blood is the Blood of God and keep us from reading that He is God manifested in the flesh. This is all done by pretending that they are better texts. I think not.

Conclusion to this Chapter

I conclude by saying when we measure the differing textual families by their Christology, the TR, and the Textus Receptus are by far the superior texts. Jesus Christ is not a begotten God and He certainly was and is God manifested in the flesh and His very blood, by union with God the self-existent Word, is the very blood of God. We cannot submit to anything less.

Finish to this Introduction

13

Theological Introduction

In the area of textual criticism we can never decide which Bible to use by human reasoning. We must be taught of God as to which is the true and proper Inspired Word of God. This teaching comes concerning our Lord Jesus Christ and His glories.

1Jo 2:20 But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.

Matt. 16:16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

I Cor. 2:7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.

I am not suggesting that persons are reprobates who do not hold to the TR and KJV, but I do suggest that when a person is presented the truth about the glories of Jesus Christ and His essential Being, and then rejects these glories and truths IN A FINAL AND TOTAL MANNER, this is not a sign of a true follower of Jesus Christ. By their fruits ye shall know them.

Matt. 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Divine Equality

We must understand some basic theological and Christological fundamentals. in our studies inorder to arrive at a proper conclusion in the Which Bible controversy. Let me go over some of these and then I shall make some important deductions.

First, Jesus taught us about His Divine Equality with the Father. He said:

John 5:22 For the Father judges no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:

14

23 That all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honors not the Son honors not the Father which hath sent him.

One result of the Father’s bestowing the Mediatorial Judgeship unto Jesus Christ is to manifest Divine Equality between the Father and the Son. Yes, I know about the Father’s monarchial superiority over the Son, but this is not in His Divine essence but only in His office works in the Covenant of Redemption. The Father is superior or greater to Christ and is Christ’s Head, only in Christ’s sacred Manhood in relationship to His office and work as the God-Man Mediator. In the Divine essence the Father is not greater, because they Three are One in the same essential divine essence. Therefore no Divine Being is greater than any other Divine Being in the essential Divine Essence.

Honoring the Son as We Honor the Father in the Divine Essence

Christ taught the doctrine of Equality between the Father and the Son. This did not pertain to His manhood, but to His divine essence as the God-Man Mediator.

Phil. 2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

Let me ask some questions:

1. Is the Father self-existent and immutable or did He have a Divine Origin from the mind of the eternal Divine Essence?

2. Is the Father of Himself, ingenerate and uncreated?

Since we believe in the Divine Equality of the One Divine Essence, how can we affirm the above two axioms to the Father alone and not God the Eternal Word, and to God the Holy Spirit? We cannot. The Three are One in the Divine Essence or Godhead.

The Equal and Common Divine Attributes

The One Divine Essence contains the same Divine Attributes equally in the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit. The Son has these same equal Divine Attributes because of His Personal Union with God the Eternal Word. He has them in His essential Deity, not in His essential manhood. As God the Eternal Word He possesses the same attributes of self-existence and immutability as the Father and Holy Spirit do. The fullness of the Godhead abides in Christ Jesus, not just a part of it.

Col 2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

Self Existent and Immutable Attributes

Since the Father is both self-existent and immutable so is the Son in His essential Divine Being as God the Word. Since the Father is of Himself, ingenerate, so is the Son in His essential Divine Being. As the Father is uncreated even so is God the Son in His essential Divine Being. Whatever we say about God the Father in His Attributes we must also say about the Son in His essential Deity as God the Word, and about God the Holy Spirit. If this is not so, then the Divine Beings in the Trinity Each do not possess the same Divine Essence. We distinguish between the Beings in the Trinity, NOT BY THEIR LACKING OF ANY DIVINE ATTRIBUTES, BUT BY THEIR RELATIVE PROPERTIES.

Does the Father Alone Possess all the Divine Attributes?

15

If we distinguish the Beings in the Trinity by their attributes and not by their relative properties it would mean that the Father alone possesses the fullness of the Divine attributes of the One Divine Essence. Therefore the Holy Trinity is not a Trinity in equality at all, but is really a Unitarian existence with two lesser Divine Beings. This is what Nicenism is founded upon and then proceeds into the successive gods dogma. If they are not a Trinity in Equality then they are not a Trinity in Oneness. These lesser Divine Beings are not of themselves, they are not self-existent and they are not immutable, so we are being told.

Nicenism teaches that these two lesser Beings, the Divine Word or Son in hypostatic Union, and the Holy Spirit, have fewer Divine Attributes than the Father. According to Nicenism They are not self-existent and immutable. Who wants to affirm the above except a Monotheist? Only a true Unitarian would affirm such a position openly.

No Monotheism

Please note I said openly. Others, by default, do affirm Monotheism without being aware of it. Some are aware of it and try to conceal it, but in the end, it is the same, they do not honor the Son as they honor the Father. Is it not becoming more clear as to why some Bibles leave out the true and proper I John 5:7 and 8? But, the same also may be said for the true and proper John 1:18, Acts 20:28, and I Tim. 3:16.

Concealed Arianism

What I am saying is this, that in the final analysis the Nicenian Creed is nothing more than concealed Arianism. This will be my next point. Please understand the distinction between what is professed in Arianism and what is professed in Nicenism. Arians say that Christ is not a generated God but a created God. Nicenists say that Christ is not a created God but a generated God. Nicenists then produced their own version of John 1:18 to try to prove that Christ is the only begotten God.

Constantine and the Arian-Nicenist Controversy

Sometime near the beginning of the fourth century, Constantine had a questionable converting vision. He then proceeded to unite the Pagan Roman Empire with his version of professed Christianity. He grew tired of the Arian Conflict and ordered his Imperial Bishops to come to a proper conclusion. In time, they did so. They produced the Nicenian Creed of Begotten and Proceeding Divine Beings, the Begotten God position. Being happy with this conclusion, Constantine then had a new church and a new Creed. Next, he commissioned Eusebius, his most powerful and favorite admirer, to produce 50 new bibles to be used in the new Holy Roman Empire that he had created. Eusebius did this and received many great honors he would not have had otherwise. The Westcott-Hort Bibles are essentially the same as the Constantine-Eusebius Bibles.

Returning to the Arian-Nicene Conflict

In the final analysis there is little difference between the Arians and the Nicenists. Both have distorted views about Jesus Christ in His essential deity and downgrade Him by making Him less than the Father by denying that He is self-existent and immutable. The Nicenist will not openly admit this, and tries to deny this with theological double-talk, but we are capable of knowing that words have certain meanings and produce certain conclusions. Both argued from the one same Greek word. Here are some further notes from my work, The Eternal Sonship of Christ, Vol. 2:

16

Taking our leave from the English Scriptures, we now go into the original Greek language, γενναω occurs in about 70 verses. Look well at Matthew 1:16, Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was BORN Jesus. This is a regular term and it is used in such places as John 3:6 and 7. In Biblical theology, the term generation can also mean born.

Here is Liddell and Scott on γενναω: “To produce from one’s self, to create.” Page 254, unabridged Greek Lexicon.

Now we ask, did the Father generate the Eternal Word from Himself as the Nicenists teach, or did He create the Eternal Word as the radical Arians teach? We answer no to both. However, the Father did produce from Himself the Man Christ Jesus.

Relying upon the Same Greek Term

When we consider the Nicenian-Arian controversy, we realize that both sides relied strongly upon the same Greek term, γενναω. This same Greek term means either to generate or to create. Therefore, when we take away the Nicenian double talk, we arrive at a downgraded Jesus Christ in His essential Deity. This is why Eusebius had so much uncertainty in his own mind and waited until he could determine which side had the most power and then sided with the Nicenists who then were the dominate group.

The Impossibility of the Begotten God Concept

There are some things God cannot do. He cannot sin, He cannot die, and He cannot will Himself to become a devil, to name a few. However, there is one just as important, He cannot reproduce another God with the same Divine Nature that He has. This is a total contradiction. If God produced the Divine Being of God the Word, then the Divine Word is not self-existent. This is simple, and it should be obvious. If only the Father is self-existent, or of Himself, as the Nicenist say, whatever that means, then the Divine Nature in the Divine Word is not self-existent and therefore not of Himself. This is not the same Divine nature that is in the Father. It would be missing the Divine attribute of Self-Existence. A begotten being certainly cannot be a self-existent being. This is not all. If God the Father did reproduce another God, as the Nicenists and their Bibles teach, then Christ in His essential Divine nature is not immutable. He became what He was not by the process of eternal generation.

If the Nicenist is correct, then God the Divine Word began as a thought in the Father’s mind, and by the process of eternal generation, became a Divine Being. This is Platonism in a Christian setting.

Platonic and Neo-Platonic Christology

Many leading Nicenists actually teach that the Divine Word began in the Father’s mind as an idea. This is purely Platonic. They proceed further and say that the Father brought forth His thought or idea and made Him into a Divine Person by the process of Eternal Generation. This is more Platonic philosophy. Thomas Goodwin, one of the Westminster Divines, is a prime example of such teachings. Please note his section dealing with Christ Jesus as the Logos. I have exposed his position. Also note this site for a contemporary treatment of this subject: http://www.xanga.com/vis3o Please note these interesting statements from that site:

17

“Although Modalism had been thoroughly discredited among theologians, a clearer definition of the persons in the Trinity was desired. Philosophy had become the “handmaiden” of the church, and was determined to help it understand itself better.

Justin Martyr was one who had such a high opinion of philosophy that it helped shape his view of God. He said: ‘Philosophy is the greatest possession and most honorable before God to whom it alone leads and unites us.’ 4

Plato and other philosophers had taught that God was transcendent, beyond knowledge, and not capable of being contained in a body. Hence, any revelation of him had to be through a lesser, mediating agent. To Justin the “logos” was clearly that agent. Not only did he defend the deity of “logos”, but he stressed his difference from the Father as well: So the Logos, having been put forth as an offspring from the Father, was with him before all creatures…He is adorable. He is God; and we adore and love, next to God, the Logos derived from the increate and ineffable God, seeing that for our sakes he became man. 5

Tatian, a disciple of Justin, believed in a two-stage theory of “logos”. He taught that the “word” first existed in the mind of the Father as his rationality. Then, by an act of will, he was generated and issued forth, becoming another person with whom the Father took counsel. For him “logos” and Spirit were one and the same. He speaks of: “The heavenly Word, born as Spirit from the Father and as Word out of his rational power”. 6

Influenced by Stoic terminology, the Apologist Theophilus spoke of the Word as being immanent, or inherent, in God the Father. The Word and Wisdom of God were emitted from him before the universe was created. His was also a two-stage theory. Another who believed the Word to be God’s intelligence or rationality in the beginning was the Apologist Athenagorus. He described the Son as the Fathers’ intelligence, Word, and Wisdom. He taught that the Father and Son formed a unity, but were nonetheless distinct from one another. Other church Fathers, not necessarily Apologists, were influenced by philosophy too. The great Augustine studied the philosopher Plotinus. In the philosophy of Plotinus there was an all encompassing One. This One was above and beyond all things. From the One there sprang a Nous, or Intellect, which was responsible for all order in the universe. Thirdly, there was Soul, or the principle of reality and life, which permeated all things. After reading his works, Augustine saw in this philosopher, the Christian God. He wrote: Who is the “One”, if not God the Father, the first person of the Christian Trinity? And who is the “Nous”, or Intellect, if not the second person of the Christian Trinity? 8

Another church leader influenced by his view of Greek thought was Clement of Alexandria. As we have already intimated, in the case of Philo, philosophy was diligently pursued in that city. Clement tried to harmonize it with Christian doctrine. He was anxious to alleviate fears Christians had of it. Philosophy, he taught, had been a schoolmaster to bring the Greeks to Christ. As the law had prepared the Jews, so had it prepared them. He followed Justin and others in declaring the transcendence of God, and the need for a mediator. For him Christ was that mediator. The highest One of religion and philosophy, however, remained inaccessible. Only through the lesser “logos” was God accessible, and

18

knowable to man. While carefully defending the deity of Christ, he made him a lesser manifestation of God, and another person. Origen, also from Alexandria, studied under Clement. By the age of eighteen he had proven to be a brilliant religious thinker, and came to be one of the most respected teachers in the history of the Church.

With respect to the Godhead, Origen believed in the One who was transcendent. He also believed in Christ, the lesser expression of God. He believed the Son was eternal; otherwise, there would have been a time when God was not Father. In his view this could not be. As any Son, the “logos” was subordinate to his Father, yet he was God in every other sense of the word.”

Justin’s teachings about Eternal Generation came from Platonic philosophy. He was the first Christian writer that we have found who taught eternal generation openly. Here are some of his comments:

Justin on Eternal Generation

p. 438

CHAPTER 61 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers

WISDOM IS BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER,

AS FIRE FROM FIRE

“I shall give you another testimony, my friends,” said I, “from the Scriptures, that God begat before all creatures a Beginning, [who was] a certain rational power [proceeding] from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos; and on another occasion He calls Himself Captain, when He appeared in human form to Joshua the son of Nave (Nun). For He can be called by all those names, since He ministers to the Father’s will, and since He was begotten of the Father by an act of will; just as we see happening among ourselves: for when we give out some word, we beget the word; yet not by abscission, so as to lessen the word [which remains] in us, when we give it out: and just as we see also happening in the case of a fire, which is not lessened when it has kindled [another], but remains the same; and that which has been kindled by it likewise appears to exist by itself, not diminishing that from which it was kindled. The Word of Wisdom, who is Himself this God begotten of the Father of all things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and the Glory of the Begetter, will bear evidence to me, when He speaks by Solomon the following: ‘If I shall declare to you what happens daily, I shall call to mind events from everlasting, and review them. The Lord made me the beginning of His ways for His works. From everlasting He established me in the beginning, before He had made the earth, and before He had made the deeps, before the springs of the waters had issued forth, before the mountains had been established. Before all the hills He begets me. God made the country, and the desert, and the highest inhabited places under the sky. When He made ready the heavens, I was along with Him, and when He set up His throne on the winds: when He made the high clouds strong, and the springs of the deep safe, when He made the foundations of the earth, I was with Him arranging. I was that in which He rejoiced; daily

438

and at all times I delighted in His countenance, because He delighted in the finishing of the habitable world, and delighted in the sons of men. Now, therefore, O son, hear me. Blessed is the

19

man who shall listen to me, and the mortal who shall keep my ways, watching daily at my doors, observing the posts of my in goings. For my outgoings are the outgoings of life, and [my] will has been prepared by the Lord. But they who sin against me, trespass against their own souls; and they who hate me love death.

Justin’s treatment of Old Testament Christology is outstanding, but his mixture of Platonic philosophy with Christology is terrible and must be rejected.

The Nicenist Creed, in its Christology, is clearly Platonic. Thomas Goodwin, Westminster Assembly divine, in his treatment of Christ, under the name of Logos, is clearly Platonic. Goodwin, in discussing this very issue in his section on Christology, stated:

Lastly, Whereas it may be said, that the philosophers having used that phrase afore John, in this or the like sense, that therefore John taking up out of choice the same title, and giving it to Christ, that therefore he should use it in their sense and intention. Answer is,

(1.) That John originally used this word from the Old Testament itself. For the Jews expressed their Messiah, or Christ to come, under this notion, ' the Word,' and ' the Word of God,' as appears by the Chaldee paraphrasts (who are at least as ancient as Christ) (Note here that the learned Dr. has already told us that Christ, as Christ, existed before creation now he says that these uninspired Chaldean paraphrases are as ancient as Christ- strange words, REP) often, when God the Son is mentioned and spoken of, they translate it 'the Word.' So Hosea i. 7, 'I will save them by the Lord their God;' they render it, 'I will redeem them by the Word of the Lord their God.' So Ps. ex. 1, * The Lord said to my Lord;' the paraphrasts expound it, * The Lord said to the Word.' And so Isa. xlv. 17, ' Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation ;' they read it, * by the Word of the Lord,' namely Christ. And this phrase not the Jews only, but the Scriptures themselves, do use, as 2 Sam. vii. 21, ' For thy Word's sake,' says David, that is, for thy Christ's sake. For 1 Chron. xvii. 19, it is rendered, * For thy servant's sake;' and is all one with that, Dan. ix., ' For the Lord's sake.' Philo (a Jew never turned Christian, and not long after Christ's time) in his writings calls him logov as before did Plato and those heathens who stole their knowledge from the Jews, and vended it as their own. Taken from THE WORKS OF THOMAS GOODWIN VOLUME FOUR, p. 418.

I therefore conclude this chapter by noting three points:

1. Concerning the Father, the Nicenist Creed and the C-E Bibles teach Zeus mythology;

2. Concerning the Logos, they are a mixture of Philo and Plato;3. Concerning the substance or homoousias of the Begotten Deity of Christ, they

were a mixture of Constantine and Aristotle.

Constantine, himself, insisted on the inclusion of a word which created uncertainty homoousias”. The word means that the Son partook of the same substance as the Father. It was a philosophic term borrowed from Aristotle, and referred to the underlying nature shared by any group of things. In this instance, it referred to the Godhood shared by each member of the Trinity.

I have no confidence in an eclectic Creed founded upon such a mixture. Nor do I have any confidence in any of the Constantine-Eusebius Bibles that support it. I can never approve of the C-E Bibles under their new name, the Westcott-Hort textual family. I much prefer the TR and King James. Christ is the Only Begotten Son. He is not a begotten God, and His blood, by union with the Divine Word, is the very blood of God, and He certainly was and is God manifest in the flesh.

Finish this Chapter

20

Introduction C

The So-Called Disputed Passages and the Major Disputed Passage,

John 1:18

In treating of textual distinctions, there is no end to the variants that may be found between the different texts, even among the different Textus Receptus texts. This is because most of these texts, with others, were complied long before the age of printing and the human factor must always be taken into consideration. Writers like Mills have sought to discredit the TR because of these variants. What no one wants to consider is that with all these variants, still the Christology and Theology within the T R families is not altered or downgraded in any way.

The variants between the Constantine-Eusebius Bibles and the TR show a very strong downgrading of Jesus Christ and as a result the entire Trinity. These main variants deal with the very nature of the Godhead from John 1:18, the Economy and Unity of the Trinity from I John 5:7 and 8, the Manifestation of God in the Flesh, and the Value and Dignity of Christ’s Blood and the entire scope of vicarious, substitutionary blood redemption by the very blood of God. There are many sites on the www that show the distinctions between the TR, King James, and the W-H texts concerning the blood of Jesus.

I have not chosen to enter much into these other texts because to do so would swell these pages well beyond my original intent. Brother Michael Maynard has investigated I John 5:7 and published his researches and conclusions in a convincing manner. I have not yet found many enlarged studies on Acts 20:28, or I Tim. 3:15. Both of these texts are vital in our Christology beliefs and studies. However, I cannot do now a complete and exhaustive study on each of these as I have done on John 1:18. Perhaps someday I can. I have done only a limited study on each and I will briefly share my findings in this short chapter.

Concerning the Blood of God

Here are some statements from the early Christian writers on the expression, The Blood of God.

The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol.1THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS (AD 30-107)CHAPTER 1

PRAISE OF THE EPHESIANS[SHORTER]I have become acquainted with your name, much-beloved in God, which ye have acquired by the habit of righteousness, according to the faith and love in Jesus Christ our Savior. Being the followers of God, and stirring up yourselves by the blood of God, ye have perfectly accomplished the work which was beseeming to you. Page 99.

THE SECOND EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO THE EPHESIANS;

CHAPTER 1INASMUCH as your name. which is greatly beloved, is acceptable to me in God, [your name] which ye have acquired by nature, through a right and just will, and also by the faith and love of Jesus Christ our Savior, and ye are imitators of God, and are fervent in the blood of God, and have speedily completed a work congenial to

21

you [for] when ye heard that I was bound, so as to be able to do nothing for the sake of the common name and hope (and I hope, through your prayers, that I may be devoured by beasts at Rome, so that by means of this of which I have been accounted worthy, I may be endowed with strength to be a disciple of God), ye were diligent to come and see me. Page 197.

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, (A.D. 153-217)

34. This visible appearance cheats death and the devil; for the wealth within, the beauty, is unseen by them. And they rave about the carcass, which they despise as weak, being blind to the wealth within; knowing not what a “treasure in an earthen vessel” we bear, protected as it is by the power of God the Father, and the blood of God the Son, and the dew of the Holy Spirit. But be not deceived, thou who hast tasted of the truth, and been reckoned worthy of the great redemption. Page 1217.

I can find no mention of the Blood of God in volume 3.

Tertullian, 160 – 220 AD

So far as I know, “we are not our own, but bought with a price;” and what kind of price? The blood of God. In hurting this flesh of ours, therefore, we hurt Him directly. Page 91. Vol. 4.

I need not to continue these quotations as they show that the early Christian writers used the terms The Blood of God rather than the terms the Blood of the Lord, The correct text is The Blood of God.

I do not find the expression, The Blood of God, used anywhere in the entire Bible. The usage is a reference to Acts 20:28, and while not a direct quote, they are the same as and show that the W-H textual family once again is defective and downgrading to Jesus Christ.

There are valuable works comparing the many instances in the New Testament where the Sacred Scriptures mention the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in a redemptive way that the W-H textual family has omitted on purpose. I recommend that concerned readers surf the WWW for any number of the excellent studies.

Negative Comments

http://messiahistism.bravehost.com/GodNoBleed.htmBack to The Messiahistism Homepage

Acts 20:28 Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of god that he obtained with the blood of his own Son. New Revised Standard Version

Act s 20:28 προσεχετε εαυτοις και παντι τω ποιµνιω εν ω υµας το πνευµα το αγιον εθετο επισκοπους ποιµαινειν την εκκλησιαν του θεου ην περιεποιησατο δια του αιµατος του ιδιου. Westcott-Hort text from 1881

Αιµατος is just a different usage of blood; ιδιου is “of his own” while αιµατων is the plural genitive “of blood.”

So, “the blood” possessed by “his own” but ιδιου is in the genitive, there is no object in the Westcott-Hort text.

22

Genitive: it’s the case generally of possession.

Example: ARXH KTISEWS, Creation’s beginning; it’s the beginning possessed by the group of creation. Basically, think of it like an English ‘s.

So, hAIMA is “blood” while hAIMATOS is “of blood”

Chester Beatti, dates 2nd Century. Acts 20:28 “...To shepherd the ekklesia of the master and of god, which he acquired through his own blood.”

Byzantine Majority Acts 20:28 προσεχετε ουν εαυτοις και παντι τω ποιµνιω εν ω υµας το πνευµα το αγιον εθετο επισκοπους ποιµαινειν την εκκλησιαν του κυριου και θεου ην περιεποιησατο δια του ιδιου αιµατος

World English Bible Acts 20:28 Take heed, therefore, to yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the assembly of the Lord and God which he purchased with his own blood.

Therefore, the true God does not bleed, but rather it is the master/lord (referring to the Messiah) who bled on the cross/stake.

Bart D. Ehrman chairs the Department of Religious Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is an authority on the history of the New Testament, the early church, and the life of Jesus. And I will be quoting from his book ‘Misquoting Jesus’ concerning Acts 20:28, pages 113-114 (I have a recommendation of a few of his books on my Homepage):

And it happens in a passage in Acts 20:28, which in many manuscripts speaks of “the Church of God, which he obtained by his own blood.” Here again, Jesus appears to be spoken of as God. But in Codex Alexandrinus and some other manuscripts, the text instead speaks of “the Church of the Lord, which he obtained by his own blood.” Now Jesus is called the Lord, but he is not explicitly identified as God. Alerted to such difficulties, Wettstein began thinking seriously about his own theological convictions, and became attuned to the problem that the New Testament rarely, if ever, actually calls Jesus God. And he began to be annoyed with his fellow pastors and teachers in his home city of Basel, who would sometimes confuse the language about God and Christ—for example, when talking about the Son of God as if he were the Father, or addressing God the Father in prayer and speaking of “your sacred wounds.” Wettstein thought that more precision was needed when speaking about the Father and the Son, since they were not the same. Wettstein’s emphasis on such matters started raising suspicions among his colleagues, suspicions that were confirmed for them when, in 1730, Wettstein published a discussion of the problems of the Greek New Testament in anticipation of a new edition that he was preparing. Included among the specimen passages in his discussion were some of these disputed texts that had been used by theologians to establish the biblical basis for the doctrine of the divinity of Christ. For Wettstein, these texts in fact had been altered precisely in order to incorporate that perspective: the original texts could not be used in support of it.

Thanks Bart D. Ehrman, for the nice explanation of the corruption of Acts 20:28 among many, many other passages. If you, the reader, want to know what these other passages are, buy his book.

According to this site it is a corruption to speak of the Blood of God. I have given this brief statement to show some of the problems with the other disputed texts. Please note well the pretended supposition that the New Testament does not speak often of Jesus as God.

Concerning I Tim. 3:16

From the following site:

23

http://www.deanburgonsociety.org/CriticalTexts/dbs2695.htm I note:

IV. ARTICLE III--WESTCOTT & HORT'S NEW TEXTUAL THEORY-- Refuted by Dean Burgon (pages 233-366)

A. The Importance of Dean Burgon's ARTICLE III Which Refuted Westcott and Hort's NEW TEXTUAL THEORY. In 1881, Westcott and Hort and the other members of the translation committee of the English Revised Version (ERV) published their very inferior work. At about the same time Westcott and Hort published an Introduction to the Greek New Testament. This amazingly misleading book has been answered fully by Dean Burgon in his ARTICLE III. The BIBLE FOR TODAY has re-printed this Introduction for those who wish to see their false theory for themselves. It is BFT #1303 (540 pp.) which is available for a gift of $25.00. This false THEORY behind the false Revised Greek text is as important as the Greek text itself. Not only is the same basic false Greek text in use today by the various versions and perversions, but also the same basic false THEORY supporting this text is in use today by the same versions and perversions!!

B. Important Quotations from Dean Burgon's ARTICLE III: WESTCOTT AND HORT'S NEW TEXTUAL THEORY (pages 233-366).

1. Dean Burgon's Massive Evidence in Favor of the Reading "GOD Was Manifest in the Flesh" in 1 Timothy 3:16. Dean Burgon shows strong and irrefutable proof for the correctness of "GOD WAS MANIFEST IN THE FLESH."

Evidence for THEOS ("God") N.T. Greek Manuscripts (Lectionaries & Copies) = 289 Ancient N.T. Versions = 3 Greek Church Fathers = c. 20

There is an abundance of evidence for this reading as contained in the King James Bible. Theos or "God" is without any doubt the original and proper reading.

Evidence for HO ("which") N.T. Greek Manuscripts = 1 Ancient N.T. Versions = 5 Greek Church Fathers = 2

This evidence for ho, or "which," is extremely scanty. It has no opportunity to succeed as the original and proper reading.

Evidence for HOS ("who") N.T. Greek Manuscripts = 6 Ancient N.T. Versions = 1 Greek Church Fathers = 0 [Dean John W. Burgon, Revision Revised, pp. 486-496].

Again, this is not sufficient evidence to favor hos, or "who." It is unreasonable to have the modern versions favoring it, yet they do.

"GOD was manifest in the flesh" is the correct reading in the King James Bible. Though it is entirely in error, HOS is what is used in the new versions and perversions of our day. Here are a few of them:

"HE WHO was manifested in the flesh"--the American Standard Version. "HE was manifested in the flesh"--the Revised Standard Version.

24

"HE WHO was revealed in the flesh"--New American Standard Version. "HE appeared in a body"--the New International Version. "HE was shown to us in a human body"--the New Century Version. "HE was revealed in flesh"--the New Revised Standard Version.

2. The Error of "Alternative Readings." Dean Burgon wrote: "What are found in the margin are therefore `alternative readings'--in the opinion of these self-constituted representatives of the Church and of the Sects. It becomes evident that by this ill-advised proceeding, our Revisionists would convert every Englishman's copy of the New Testament into a one-sided Introduction to the Critical difficulties of the Greek Text; a labyrinth, out of which they have not been at the pains to supply him with a single hint as to how he may find his way. . . . What else must be the result of all this but general uncertainty, confusion, distress? A hazy mistrust of all Scripture has been insinuated into the hearts and minds of countless millions, who in this way have been forced to become doubters,--yea, doubters in the Truth of Revelation itself." [Dean John W. Burgon, Revision Revised, pp. 236-237]. Dean Burgon is opposed to alternative readings. These are what abound in the footnotes of the study edition of the New Textus Receptus. The reader doesn't know which to believe, the words of the text or the words of the footnotes! This results in a "hazy mistrust of all Scripture"!

In Conclusion

I deal with the disputations surrounding John 1:18 in a different chapter. So in conclusion to this chapter let me note that there are several very important texts that the Textus Receptuss followed the Textus Receptus on and these glorify our Lord Jesus Christ in a high and honorable manner just as the Scriptures teach us. Anything less is downgrading and dishonorable to the God-Man Redeemer.

Let us remember the Arians tried to present our Lord, in His Deity, as a Created God. The Nicenists said no, He began as an idea in the Father’s mind and by the process of eternal generation He has become a begotten God. Both are wrong.

Finish to this Chapter

25

General Introduction

I do not purpose to produce another work trying to validate the disputed texts of I John 5:7, I Tim. 3:16, Acts 20:28 John 8:1- and Mark 16: ultra. These are very important and I shall deal with the theological issues of some of these in my conclusion. I purpose to discuss the most overlooked and ignored disputed text in Textual Criticism, John 1:18. The implications involved in holding to this true and proper text or denying it, are far reaching and involve the very nature of the complex Person of Jesus Christ and His Mediatorial Office and work as the God-Man. They even touch the very God-Head and the essential Essence and Attributes of the One Divine Essence. Do we believe in Gods originating by succession or do we believe in the self-existence of each Divine Being in the Trinity?

The Essential Deity of the God-Man Redeemer

Quite simply this is the issue, is Jesus Christ, in His essential Deity, a Begotten God or a self-existent and immutable God in both His Divine Nature and His Divine Being? Or to ask this question in another way, did Jesus Christ emanate from the Father in His essential Deity by the process of eternal generation?. I am not dealing with the sacred manhood of Christ, but only His deity.

The True Text

Which is the true text:

the Only Begotten Son from the Textus Receptus, and the Textus Receptus or

the only begotten God from the Constantine-Eusebius texts through Westcott and Hort?

I understand that some pretend this text should read, the only unique God, but this understanding is without foundation. Let such pretenders tell us what a unique God is?

This concerns the nature of the very Deity of Jesus Christ in His essential Divine Being as God the Divine, self-existent Word. While every Word of God is pure and essential, yet there must be a foundation established that Believers can manifest their hopes upon. This is the essential Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Is He a Self-Existent Divine Being, and therefore Immutable, or is He a Begotten Deity, therefore not self-existent and not immutable?

While the ancient Constantine-Eusebius Bibles did not introduce the Begotten God concept into Christianity, so far as my investigations have shown after nearly forty years, Justin Martyr did, yet these corrupted C-E Bibles forced this concept upon unsuspecting Christians throughout the so-called Holy Roman Empire and elsewhere. It is even so now in the entire English speaking world. The whole world seems to follower the beast system of Constantine, using his creed and his bible.

Reviving the Corrupted Text

In our day and age the efforts of Westcott and Hort and their disciples, have revived this corrupted Imperial text of a Begotten God. During the times of the Downgrader Movement

26

in England and elsewhere in the late 1800s, these men and their co-workers brought the Begotten God text back from the Papacy and placed it into the hands of the unsuspecting public. Since then countless multitudes have tried to make it the received text of modernized Christians. But is this a valid text? It is no more valid than Zeus is, and no more than the several versions of the Nicene Creed are. Only because the Tractarian Movement dignified the betrayal of John Wycliffe’s Oxford into the hands of the Papists and Jesuits in England during the 1800s, could men like Westcott and Hort re-produce such a Papal text and influence its official adoption among scores of none-Papal followers in the English world. Is Christ a begotten God? Certainly He is not! Christ is no more a Begotten God than the Wafer is Divine in the Papal Mass.

The Only Legal Text

Not only did the C-E Bibles establish, not introduce, the Begotten God text as the official text in professed, imperial Christianity, but quickly it became the only legal text to possess and even cost many dissenters their lives for rejecting it in favor of the Begotten Son texts contained in the Textus Receptus in the ancient Greek and old Italic Scriptures.

The Priscilianists are an example of the intolerance of the C-E Bible followers. They were Spanish dissenters in the later 300s who rejected the Nicene Creed and the new C-E Bibles in favor of the older Latin texts that taught the proper Only Begotten Son Christology. For their efforts many of them were murdered by the new Holy Catholic Church Constantine established just a few years before. They rejected the Constantine- Eusebius Bibles.

The Early Existence of Two Texts

Yes, we can find the Begotten Son Texts in the time of Justin, well before Origin. These predate the Constantine-Eusebius Bibles by many years. We can find these two texts side by side before some of the early Christian writers. What textual families did the Only Begotten Son texts come from? I would conclude that it was from the same Greek Manuscripts that contained the other disputed passages. The Gentile Church at Antioch gathered and translated the true and proper texts into the Old Italic and sent them into the Western World years before the corruptions Eusebius Bibles became the official Bible of the new Holy Catholic Church.

Ignatius and Irenaeus

Let me cite one of my other works, Studies on the Only Begotten God Texts in the Apostolic Fathers:

Here is an example:

Ignatius, writing around 175 A D, stated:

THE EPISTLE OF IGNATIUS TO HERO, A DEACON OF ANTIOCH (p.224) Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1.

saith [the Scripture], “is one Lord.” And again, “Hath not one God created us? Have we not all one Father? And there is also one Son, God the Word. For “the only-begotten Son,” saith [the Scripture], “who is in the bosom of the Father.”

Another example:

27

4) (Page 583) 6. For “no man,” he says, “hath seen God at any time,” unless “the only-begotten Son of God, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared [Him].” For He, the Son who is in His bosom, declares to all the Father who is invisible.

And again:

[God] is invisible and indescribable to all things which have been made by Him, but He is by no means unknown: for all things learn through His Word that there is one God the Father, who contains all things, and who grants existence to all, as is written in the Gospel: “No man hath seen God at any time, except the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father; He has declared [Him.]” (Pages 976, 977) The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol.1.

I then researched out the early usage of the Only Begotten God citings, here are my results:

In Conclusion to the Apostolic Father’s Usage of Only Begotten God from John 1:18

These two statements contain the Apostolic Father’s citing of John 1:18 were Jesus is an Only Begotten God. These two, Ignatius and Irenaeus are the only ones who cited what we now call the Westcott-Hort Text. I call it the Egyptian-Palestine Text. This is very noteworthy, only two men cited John 1:18 from the E-P Text. They only did it once each. What if they also cited the true and proper text? Did they, and how many times? This would seem to prove that these old Fathers had before them two texts and cited them both.

These early Christian writers, Irenaeus and Ignatius, both did cite both texts, the Egyptian-Palestine Texts, the Only Begotten God, and the Antiochian Text, the Only Begotten Son, showing that both texts did exist well before the close of the second century of the Christian era, near 175 AD. Origen also cited both texts during the mid 200s.

The Usage of Both Texts

Before the Nicenist Creed, around 315 AD, and the Arian controversy, the early Christian writers used both texts, but the C-E Bibles made the E-P text, the corrupted text the official text of Constantine’s new church, the Holy Catholic Church. The Westcott-Hort Bibles have made this the unofficial, official text of apostate Christianity.

The Early Translation of the Greek into old Latin and Syrian

The Gentile Church at Antioch translated the original Greek Textual Canon into both the Old Syrian and the Old Italic by at least 150 AD. We do not know which came first. Many claim the old Syrian came first. I deal with it in chapter 3. There you will see that the original old Syrian text has been lost and we have no knowledge of its contents. What we do have today under the old Syrian are translations made to conform to the corrupted Bibles of Constantine and Eusebius. This is explained in chapter 3.

The Value of the Old Italic

This means that the Old Italic may be the only real historic witness to the accuracy of the several disputed texts. These texts, including John 1:18, may not be found in every old Italic text, but they will all be found in some of the old Italic Texts. These predate the corrupted Jerome Latin Vulgate texts and the corrupted Constantine-Eusebius Bibles of the Holy Catholic Church.

28

Tertullian

Tertullian, the supposed father of Latin writers, did not use the terms, Only Begotten God, but did use the terms Only Begotten Son from John 1:18 in the following:

“And we have seen His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father;” that is, of course, (the glory) of the Son, even Him who was visible, and was glorified by the invisible Father. And therefore, inasmuch as he had said that the Word of God was God, in order that he might give no help to the presumption of the adversary, (which pretended) that he had seen the Father Himself and in order to draw a distinction between the invisible Father and the visible Son, he makes the additional assertion, ex abundanti as it were: “No man hath seen God at any time.” What God does he mean? The Word? But he has already said:“Him we have seen and heard, and our hands have handled the Word of life.” Well, (I must again ask,) what God does he mean? It is of course the Father, with whom was the Word, the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and has Himself declared Him. He was both heard and seen and, that He might not be supposed to be a phantom, was actually handled. Him, too, did Paul behold; but yet he saw not the Father. “Have I not,” he says, “seen Jesus Christ our Lord?” Moreover, he expressly called Christ God, saying: “Of whom are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever.” He shows us also that the Son of God, which is the Word of God, is visible, because He who became flesh was called Christ. Of the Father, however, he says to Timothy: “Whom none among men hath seen, nor indeed can see;” and he accumulates the description in still ampler terms: “Who only hath immortality, and dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto.” The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 3; (page 1109)

Origen

Origen, around 250 AD, stated in Volume 4 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers:

CHAPTER 71

Jesus taught us who it was that sent Him, in the words, “None knoweth the Father but the Son;” and in these, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” 897

Conclusion to this Chapter

We come to this conclusion; The Westcott-Hort texts are nothing more than the ancient texts of Constantine and Eusebius. These texts support the Nicene Creed, the official Creed of Constantine’s new Holy Catholic Church. This Creed has been adopted in various forms not only by the Roman and Greek Catholics, but most Protestants and Calvinized Baptists as well.

The Westcott-Hort texts are nothing more than representations of the four most ancient C-E Bibles that we know about. There is nothing sacred or original about them. As early as Justin’s times both texts existed and were cited by various Christian writers. Not only is this true of the so-called Orthodox writers, but of the heretics as well. Theology determined which text the early writers used. Tertullian is regarded as a Trinitarian writer, he used the Only Begotten Son text. Origen used both. Eusebius knew about both, and said it made no real difference, and made his Bible the official Bible of the Holy Catholic Church. In our modern times most of the Christian world wonders unknowingly after the Beast System of Constantine and have adopted the C-E Bibles. But why? Is Jesus a Begotten God or a Begotten Son?

29

Chapter 1

Stating the Issue

Is Jesus a Begotten God or a Begotten Son?

Since we are faced with the question of Which Bible, the King James based on the historic Greek and Latin Textus Receptus texts, or other Translations how can we answer? We must measure this question and answer it by our Lord Jesus Christ, what think ye of Christ?

The Issue of Divine Revelation and Unction

The issue here is not one of natural science and historical inquiry, but of Divine Revelation and Unction. What has God the Father taught us about Jesus Christ and His essential Deity and Being? Is He equal to the Father in His essential Being and Nature or is He a produce of the Father’s mind brought into being as a Divine Person by eternal generation as the Nicenists and their various Creeds and Bibles teach?

John 17:1 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

I John 2:18 Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.20 But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.26 These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.

For an open and accurate account of how the Nicenists, whether Papal, Protestant or Baptist, consider Christ to be a divine person by the process of eternal generation, consider Thomas Goodwin’s remarks in his section on Christology dealing with the Logos. Goodwin was a leading member of the famed Westminster Assembly that produced the Westminster Confession of Faith.

Not King James Onlyism

Let me quickly note that we do not believe in any form of King James onlyism. We value the King James translation because of the foundational texts used to produce it. This is also true of the Bishop’s Bible, the Geneva Bible, the Tyndall Bible and others that come from the ancient Greek and Latin Textus Receptus. We could say the same for the ancient German Bible or the ancient French Bible. The same is true of many translations of today

30

that are based on the same ancient Greek and Latin TR texts. We are not King James onlyists, but we are Textus Receptus onlyists in both Greek and Old Latin.

Constantine established a new church in the early fourth century. He was tired of the fighting between the so called Orthodox Christians and the Arians. He called for a empire wide council to settle the issue and produce a standard Creed for his new church. This is called the Nicenian Council and they produced what is called the Nicenian Creed. Inorder to valid this new Creed, Constantine commissioned one of his favorite admirers and supporters, Eusebius, to produce fifty uniform Bibles to validate the New Creed and become the Official Bibles of the Holy Catholic Church.

Satan’s Unholy Trinity

By the middle of the fourth century, professed Christianity had a new church with a new creed and new bibles. Satan’s new unholy trinity has become the standard by which all professing Christians are to judge their Bibles and their Christology. We dissent.

So once again we ask, what think ye of Christ, is He the only Begotten God or in His Deity and Being is He self-existent and immutable, and is therefore the only Begotten Son?

The Arians taught different concepts about the Deity and Being of Jesus Christ. The moderate Arians denied eternal generation. The extreme Arians denied the equal deity of Christ with His Father’s deity and claimed Christ was a created God. The Nicenists denied both and taught Justin’s concept of eternal generation and declared that Jesus Christ was not a created God, but a generated God. Neither is true, He is a self-existent Divine Being, and not a generated or created God.

Concerning the Only Begotten Word

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Father’s Only Begotten Son, but no were does the Sacred Scripture present Him as the Father’s Only Begotten Word. In the Egyptian-Palestinian textual family, John 1:18 incorrectly reads the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared Him. They do this in order to justify the early theology of the Begotten God and unbegotten God that Justin Martyr helped to introduce into the rapidly apostatizing churches.

This theology is nothing more than a redoing of the Zeus theology of Greek Mythology. Some of the early Christian (?) writers did refer to Him in this manner both before and after the first Nicene Council. In the Arian controversy Christ is often spoken about as the Father’s Only Begotten Word. This is totally foreign to the Scriptures.

Is He Both A Begotten Deity or Word or the Only Begotten Son?

In the writings and theology of those who developed the Egyptian-Palestinian Textual Manuscripts, and later the Nicene Creed, there is no distinction. They repeatedly affirmed that Christ is both a Begotten Deity or Word and a Begotten Son. Because of their failure to make a clear distinction between the two, they later began to affirm that Christ received His manly being and substance from Mary and not from the Father.

The failure of the early Fathers to note correctly the distinction between the unbegotten Word, Christ in His Deity, and the Begotten Son, Christ in His manhood, began the concept that Christ in His Deity came from the Father and Christ as the Son, in His manhood came, from Mary. This, of course, also is borrowed from the early Mythology of

31

the Mother-Son worship of the ancient Nations and has a very important place in early Greek Mythology. In Constantine’s church it is known as Mariology.

Early Greek Mythology and the Father and His QueenThe early Greek, Babylonian, Egyptian, and other early Mythologies placed a very close relationship between the Unbegotten Father and His Spouse, the Heavenly Queen or Goddess. As time progressed and many Greeks became converted, more or less, to Christianity, some of them became known as the Greel Fathers. Because of their backgrounds they placed a strong emphasis between the unbegotten Father and His Divine Offspring Whom He either begat or created to serve Him perfectly as an example for all others to follow.

In the earliest stages these writers did not strongly develop the Goddess or Mariology. However, in the process of time what some of the early Fathers introduced and the Egyptian-Palestinian Textual family helped to make official, grew into the worship of the Divine Mother and her Divine Child within Constantine’s Church. In this way, the ancient Mythological Trinity would be included in various forms in the apostate Holy Catholic Church, or Mystical Babylon.

The Influence of Simon the Magician and the Copyists at Alexandria

Due to the strong influence of Simon the Magician and his many followers and later Justin Martyr and the corrupted textual manuscripts the Simonites produced, together with the altered manuscripts gathered and further altered by the Copyists at Alexandria, both the Theology and Textual supports for the Begotten God became fixed in apostate and corrupted Christianity that later would evolve into the Holy Catholic Church. As I said before, the inclusion of the Mother would soon come as the Father became further unknown.

Old Mythology and the Egyptian Textual Family

The Egyptian Textual family is the perfect setting for the Unknown, Unbegotten Father, the Begotten God-Son, and later the Divine Mother, of ancient mythology. This Text became the official Bible of Constantine’s Church. Why did they adopt this text and why did they outlaw later all the texts based upon the older Greek and Old Italic Texts? Simply because Eusebius considered it as the best text.

In Conclusion to this Chapter

Why not also seriously ponder why the modern Christian world almost universally adopts and uses the Egyptian Textual family of Constantine and Eusebius or its several offspring? Why do most modern Baptists hold to the first official Bible of the Papal Church produced by the apostate copyists of Alexandria and others?

Chapter 2

32

The Origin of the Begotten God Concept

There are three basic way of presenting John 1:18 and they are:

1. The Antiochian Textual family: the Only Begotten Son;2. The Constantine-Eusebius or Palestinian-Alexandrian textual family: God only

Begotten;3. The modern Westcott-Hort textual family, the Only Begotten God.

I have been investigating these and other related issues since the early 1960s. It is possible that I have overlooked some evidences and made some mistakes. If I am incorrect, I shall be happy to be corrected.

1. Justin Martyr, [A.D. 110-165.] was the earliest Christian writer that I have found who taught the Begotten God or eternal generation concept. He taught such in his debate with Trypho the Jew, Here are some of his comments:

“I shall give you another testimony, my friends,” said I, “from the Scriptures, that God begat before all creatures a Beginning, [who was] a certain rational power [proceeding] from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos; and on another occasion He calls Himself Captain, when He appeared in human form to Joshua the son of Nave (Nun). For He can be called by all those names, since He ministers to the Father’s will, and since He was begotten of the Father by an act of will; just as we see happening among ourselves: for when we give out some word, we beget the word; yet not by abscission, so as to lessen the word [which remains] in us, when we give it out: and just as we see also happening in the case of a fire, which is not lessened when it has kindled [another], but remains the same; and that which has been kindled by it likewise appears to exist by itself, not diminishing that from which it was kindled.

The Word of Wisdom, who is Himself this God begotten of the Father of all things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and the Glory of the Begetter, will bear evidence to me, when He speaks by Solomon the following: ‘If I shall declare to you what happens daily, I shall call to mind events from everlasting, and review them. The Lord made me the beginning of His ways for His works. From everlasting He established me in the beginning, before He had made the earth, and before He had made the deeps, before the springs of the waters had issued forth, before the mountains had been established. Before all the hills He begets me. God made the country, and the desert, and the highest inhabited places under the sky. When He made ready the heavens, I was along with Him, and when He set up His throne on the winds: when He made the high clouds strong, and the springs of the deep safe, when He made the foundations of the earth, I was with Him arranging. I was that in which He rejoiced; daily and at all times I delighted in His countenance, because He delighted in the finishing of the habitable world, and delighted in the sons of men. Now, therefore, O son, hear me. Blessed is the man who shall listen to me, and the mortal who shall keep my ways, watching daily at my doors, observing the posts of my in goings. For my outgoings are the outgoings of life, and [my] will has been prepared by the Lord. But they who sin against me, trespass against their own souls; and they who hate me love death.

Vol. 1, CHAPTER 61 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, WISDOM IS BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER, AS FIRE FROM FIRE, p. 437, 438.

33

Please note that Justin understood the expression a beginning to refer to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is a very important fact as you will see later. Justin said:

“from the Scriptures, that God begat before all creatures a Beginning, [who was] a certain rational power [proceeding] from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos;”

In Justin’s mind Christ Jesus, or the Divine Word, in His first and original state was a beginning. In a different chapter we shall see that the Gnostics followed Justin on this and the Imperial ministers called them heretics. I wonder why the same Imperialists did not call Justin a heretic?

From Justin Martyr to Arianism

Shortly you will see that Dean Burgon deals with John 1:18 and shows that the Valentinians (Gnostic sect-REP) also understood this in the same way. However, Burgon failed to account for Justin’s usage of this expression. He merely observed that the Valentinians used the only begotten God concept and tied it to In the Beginning. In this manner they taught that Jesus Christ was the Beginning, in His essential deity as God the Word, or Logos. They merely followed Justin. They did not originate this interpretation, but merely used what Justin Martyr already said. I wonder why no one has accused Justin of being a heretic or the forerunner of Arianism? In one regard he was. He was the first Christian I have found who taught the begotten God concept. Take away the term begotten and use created and you have full Arianism. In fact, Arius and other Arians, used the terms begotten and created interchangeably.

The Begotten God concept did not originate in Arianism, or from the Valentinians, but from Justin’s usage. It went from him into the various Gnostic writings, and then from them to the Arians. In this regard Justin’s novel introduction of the begotten god helped pave the way for the Gnostics and later the Arians. Westcott and Hort adopted the Gnostic and Arian understanding of John 1:18. We must reject this and raise our voices loudly in descent.

From Justin to Eusebius

Justin was a converted Greek who used ancient Greek Philosophy and Mythology to a great advantage. The begotten God concept comes from ancient Greek mythology. It is adopted from Zeus, who, in ancient Greek mythology, is the father of all gods and men. Justin also used Plato’s concepts very well. In Alexandria, Egypt there would soon arise another person who would follow in Justin’s concepts, Origin.

Origin used Texts that taught both the Only Begotten Son and the Only Begotten God. Due to some serious difficulties Origin was forced to leave Egypt and he relocated in the Caesarea area in Palestine. There he established another academy and set up a large library. A few years later another bright light in the Church would locate in that area, Eusebius.

Eusebius would follow in the methods of Origin and Justin. He also would later collect all the known Bible Manuscripts He could and produce the fifty Constantine - Eusebius Bibles. In these official Bibles of the Holy Catholic Church, Eusebius followed Origin and Justin and taught the only begotten God concept. Eusebius learned this because he was under strong Arian influence. Many have concluded that he was at one time an Arian. This may be true.

34

Eusebius, Arius and the Great Uncials

From Eusebius we now come to the Great Uncial Manuscripts of the Bible. They all teach the Begotten God concept. They all are the product of Eusebius, from Origin, then Justin Martyr. Eusebius taught a form of Arianism when he taught the begotten god position, for Arius and many other Arians did the same.

Dr. Shedd:

The following statements are from Shedd's introduction to Augustine on the Trinity, The Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, First Series Volume 3; Page 15,

“The Father knoweth the Son,” from all eternity (Matthew 11:27); and “loveth the Son,” from all eternity (John in. 35); and “glorifieth the Son,” from all eternity (John17:5). Prior to creation, the Eternal Wisdom “was by Him as one brought up with Him, and was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him”(Proverbs 8:30); and the Eternal Word “was in the beginning with God”(John 1:2); and “the Only Begotten Son (or God Only Begotten, as the uncials read) was eternally in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18).

The words “or God Only Begotten, as the uncials read,” came from Dr. Shedd, and are not a part of Augustine’s original statement. It is noteworthy that Augustine himself did not use the statement, God Only Begotten, in his work on the Trinity.

Now we can turn to Burgon and his short history of the controversy over John 1:18.

Burgon’s Account of John 1:18

Burgeon states that Arius and the Arians used the same method of interpretation and taught the Begotten God doctrine, meaning the Created God doctrine. From Dean Burgon we note the following interesting account:

We now reach a most remarkable instance. It will be remembered that St. John in his grand preface does not rise to the full height of his sublime argument until he reaches the eighteenth verse. He had said (ver. 14) that 'the Word was made flesh,' &c.; a statement which Valentinus was willing to admit. But, as we have seen, the heresiarch and his followers denied that 'the Word' is also 'the Son' of God. As if in order to bar the door against this pretence, St. John announces (ver. 18) that 'the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him': thus establishing the identity of the Word and the Only begotten Son.

What else could the Valentinians do with so plain a statement, but seek to deprave it? Accordingly, the very first time St. John i. 18 is quoted by any of the ancients, it is accompanied by the statement that the Valentinians, in order to prove that the 'only begotten' is 'the Beginning,' and is 'God,' appeal to the words,--'the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father [513],' &c. Inasmuch, said they, as the Father willed to become known to the worlds, the Spirit of Gnosis produced the 'only begotten' 'Gnosis,' and therefore gave birth to 'Gnosis,' that is to 'the Son': in order that by 'the Son' 'the Father' might be made known. While then that 'only begotten Son' abode 'in the bosom of the Father,' He caused that here upon earth should be seen, alluding to ver. 14, one 'as the only begotten Son.' In which, by the way, the reader is requested to note that the author of the Excerpta Theodoti (a production of the second century) reads St. John i. 18 as we do.

I have gone into all these strange details,--derived, let it be remembered, from documents which carry us back to the former half of the second century,--because in no other way is the singular phenomenon which attends the text of St. John i. 18 to be explained and accounted for. Sufficiently plain and easy of transmission as it is, this verse of Scripture is observed to exhibit perturbations which are even extraordinary.

35

Irenaeus once writes [Greek: ho] [?] [Greek: monogenês uios]: once, [Greek: ho] [?] [Greek: monogenês uios Theos]: once, [Greek: ho monogenês uios Theou] [514]:

Clemens Alex., [Greek: ho monogenês uios Theos monos][515]; which must be very nearly the reading of the Codex from which the text of the Vercelli Copy of the Old Latin was derived[516].

Eusebius four times writes [Greek: ho monogenês uios] [517]: twice, [Greek: monogenês Theos] [518]: and on one occasion gives his reader the choice of either expression, explaining why both may stand[519].

Gregory Nyss.[520] and Basil[521], though they recognize the usual reading of the place, are evidently vastly more familiar with the reading [Greek: ho monogenês Theos][522]: for Basil adopts the expression thrice[523], and Gregory nearly thirty-three times as often[524].

This was also the reading of Cyril Alex.[525], whose usual phrase however is [Greek: ho monogenês tou Theou logos][526].

Didymus has only [? cp. context] [Greek: ho monogenês Theos],--for which he once writes [Greek: ho monogenês Theos logos][527].

Cyril of Jer. seems to have read [Greek: ho monogenês monos][528].

[I have retained this valuable and suggestive passage in the form in which the Dean left it. It evidently has not the perfection that attends some of his papers, and would have been amplified and improved if his life had been spared. More passages than he noticed, though limited to the ante-Chrysostom period, are referred to in the companion volume[529]. The portentous number of mentions by Gregory of Nyssa escaped me, though I knew that there were several. Such repetitions of a phrase could only be admitted into my calculation in a restricted and representative number. Indeed, I often quoted at least on our side less than the real number of such reiterations occurring in one passage, because in course of repetition they came to assume for such a purpose a parrot-like value.

But the most important part of the Dean's paper is found in his account of the origin of the expression. This inference is strongly confirmed by the employment of it in the Arian controversy.

Arius reads [Greek: Theos] (_ap._ Epiph. 73--Tischendorf), whilst his opponents read [Greek: Huios].

So Faustinus seven times (I noted him only thrice), and

Victorinus Afer six (10) times in reply to the Arian Candidus[530].

Also Athanasius and Hilary of Poictiers four times each, and

Ambrose eight (add Epp. I. xxii. 5).

It is curious that with this history admirers of B and [Symbol: Aleph] should extol their reading over the Traditional reading on the score of orthodoxy. Heresy had and still retains associations which cannot be ignored: in this instance some of the orthodox weakly played into the hands of heretics[531]. None may read Holy Scripture just as the idea strikes them.]

I have taken the above from The Causes of the Corruption of the Greek New Testament, section dealing with John 1:18. This concludes Dean Burgon’s account.

The Begotten God Concept is Concealed Arianism

The three key persons in the transfer of Greek Mythology into Imperial and Apostate Christianity are Justin Martyr, Origin and then Eusebius. The Two Main epics in delivering

36

professed Christianity into this form of Greek Mythology have been: The Arian Controversy that resulted in the Nicenian Council and Creed, with the Constantine-Eusebius Bibles; then the Tractarian Movement, Puseyism, in England, and its influence upon Oxford and Cambridge and the Revisionism associated with Westcott and Hort and their efforts.

The Arians taught that Jesus was a created God. They used the terms created and begotten interchangeably. The Nicenists taught that Jesus was and is a begotten God. Neither are true. In His deity, Jesus is self-existent and immutable, neither generated nor created.

In Conclusion to this chapter

In conclusion to this chapter here are some interesting statements about the Alexandrian School and the theology that the Father is the Source of the Godhead:

The Father as the Root and Source of the Godhead

ELUCIDATIONS

THAT the theology of the great school of Alexandria had a character of its own, is most apparent; I should be the last to deny it. As its succession of teachers was like that of hereditary descent in a family, a family likeness is naturally to be found in this school, from the great Clement to the great Athanasius. It is a school that hands on the traditions in which Apollos had been reared; it not less reflects the Greek influences always dominant in the capital of the Macedonian hero; but it is a school in which the Gospel of Christ as the Light of the world was always made predominant: and, while a most liberal view of human knowledge was inculcated in it, yet the faith was always exalted as the mother and mistress of the true gnosis and of all science. The wise men of this world were summoned with an imperial voice, from this eldest seat and center of Christian learning, to cast their crowns and their treasures at the feet of Jesus. With a generous patronage Clement conceded all he could to the philosophy of the Greeks, and yet sublimely rose above it to a sphere it never discovered, and looked down upon all merely human intellect and its achievements like Uriel in the sun.

It was the special though unconscious mission of this school to prepare the way, and to shape the thought of Christendom, for the great epoch of the (nominal) conversion of the empire, and for the all-important synodical period, its logical consequence. It was in this school that the technical formulas of the Church were naturally wrought out. The process was like that of the artist who has first to make his own tools. He does many things, and resorts to many contrivances, never afterwards necessary when once the tools are complete and his laboratory furnished with all he wants for his work. To my mind, therefore, it is but a pastime of no practical worth to contrast the idiosyncrasies of Clement with those of Origen, and to set up distinctions between the Logos of this doctor and that. The differences to be descried belong to the personal peculiarities of great minds not yet guided to unity of diction by a scientific theology. The marvel is their harmony of thought. Their ends and their antagonisms are the same. The outcome of their mental efforts and their pious faith is seen in the result. Alexander was their product, and Athanasius (bringing all their sheaves to the Church’s garner, winnowed and harvested) is the perpetual gnomon of the Alexandrian school. Its testimony, its prescription, its harmony and unity, are all summed up in him. It is extraordinary that many truly evangelical critics seem to see, in the subordination taught by Origen, something not reconcilable with the Nicene orthodoxy. Even Bishop Bull is a subordinationist, and so are all the great orthodox divines. When Origen maintains the µοναρχι (the Father as the root and source of the Godhead, as do all the Greeks), and also a subordination of the Son in the divine ουϕσι, he is surely consistent with the Athanasian doctrine; and, if he is led to affirm a diversity of essence in connection with this subordination, he does it with such limitations as should convince us that he, too, would have subscribed the οϑµοου, in which Alexandrians no whit inferior to him finally formulated the convictions and testimonies of their predecessors. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 6; Pages 555, 556.

37

Chapter 3Old Syriac

As we enter into this chapter, please note that both the Old Syrian and the Old Latin textual families existed sometime near 150 AD. It is highly probable that the Gentile Church at Antioch produced these two early translations. They originated from one textual source, the original Greek Text. That source no longer exists. However, the Lord has kept His words alive and continuing on because we can almost reconstruct this one textual source from the writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. What we can not construct from them, we can from the old Italic Manuscript family.

Note the following points presented in the following statements:

1. One original textual family is the source used to produce the Old Syrian and the Old Italic;

2. The Original Syrian no longer exists;3. The present Syrian is a text made to Conform to the Constantine-Eusebius Texts;4. It then follows that since the new texts are altered, changed and made to conform

to the C-E texts, then the original did not.

Here is from the Diatessaron of Tatian, about AD 170:

Section IV.

119 No man hath seen God at any time; the only Son, God,23 which is in the bosom of his Father, he hath told of him.

Syrian Bibles Made to Conform to the C-E Bibles

Please note this very well: the Syrian Bibles have been made to conform to the Constantine-Eusebius Greek Textual family. The Old Italic did not undergo such a corruption and they do not conform to the C-E Texts. This is why the earlier Latin writers did not follow the corrupted text that reads Only Begotten God. By the process of conforming the Syrian texts to the C-E Greek texts, the Only Begotten Son text was omitted and the Arian-Nicenist text of the Only Begotten God was inserted. The present Syrian Texts do not represent the original Syrian Textual family, but only the corrupted, conformed textual revisions.

Almost as quickly as the original translations came forth, heretics attacked them and started to distort them. Various copies were made and the two families went their separate ways. This concludes the original unity of the Syrian Text and the original Italic Text.

Distinguishing Between the Old Syrian and the Present Syrian Texts

The present Syrian text is not the old Syrian, but a version made to conform to what we now call the Constantine-Eusebius or W-H textual families. The widely respected Peshitto is also a conformed version.

I glean from Kenyon’s The Story of our Bible.

38

The Three Earliest Translations

The three earliest, and therefore the most important for our purpose, were in the principal languages of the adjoining peoples - Syrian, Latin and Coptic (the language of the natives of Egypt). It is only lately that we have learnt much about the first versions in these tongues; for in each case the early version was eventually superseded by another, which became the accepted Bible of that people, and of the earlier translations relatively few manuscripts have survived, and most of these are only fragments. But it now seems certain that the books of the New Testament were translated into all these languages before the end of the third century, while the Syriac and Latin almost certainly go back to the second. The original translators must have used Greek manuscripts then existing; so that, so far as we can ascertain the original form of these various versions (itself not an easy task), we have the evidence of Greek manuscripts earlier than any which have come down to us . Further, these translations show us what kind of text was in use in the countries in which they were produced. (Page 14, my edition REP)

Syria was a very definite province of the Christian Church, and might very naturally develop a local form of text; and so we find in the Old Syriac a text including many unquestionably early readings, some of which occur also in the Western group and others in the Neutral (or, as we prefer to call it, Alexandrian). It is a valuable witness, all the more because it incorporates elements of different types. Later, when Bishop Rabbula in the early fifth century undertook a revision of the texts then circulating in his diocese, he brought them more into conformity with the Byzantine type, then acquiring dominance in the Church, and so produced the Peshitta, which became the generally `received text' of Syrian Christianity.

Kenyon continues:

Chapter VIII:

THE ANCIENT VERSIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

WE have now completed the survey of the primary sources of our knowledge of the text of the Greek New Testament. We go out into a wider territory. Not Greek alone, but all the tongues of Pentecost the dwellers in Mesopotamia, in Pontus and Asia, in Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, sojourners in Rome, and Arabians - are now laid under contribution.

We go to Syrian, and Egyptian, and Roman, and ask them when the sacred Scriptures were translated into their language, and what information they can give us as to the character and exact words of the Greek text from which their translations were originally made. And the answer is that the Word of God was delivered to the dwellers in some at least of these lands before the date at which the oldest of our Greek manuscripts were written.

The Vatican and Sinaitic manuscripts carry us back, as we have just seen, to about the middle of the fourth century - say, to AD 350 - and the papyri a century or more earlier.

But the New Testament was translated into Syriac and into Latin by about AD150, and into Egyptian somewhere about AD 200; and the copies which we now possess of these versions are lineal descendants of the original translations made at these dates.

The stream of textual tradition was tapped at these points, higher in its course than the highest point at which we have access to the original Greek. If we can ascertain with certainty what were the original words of the Syriac or Latin translations, we can generally know what was the Greek text which the translator had before him; we know, that is, what words were found in a Greek manuscript

39

which was extant in the first half of the second century, and which cannot have been written very far from AD100.

Early Evidences of Two Textual Families

Taking leave from Dr. Kenyon, let me note that we can establish from the writings of the early “Fathers” Irenaeus and Ignatius, then that two different textual versions of John 1:18 did exist. Origen had both before him and used them both. When Kenyon suggests that a common textual family existed and the later Greek manuscripts came from that one common family, he is incorrect. Beyond doubt the original Gospel of John contained the Only Begotten Son text, heretics and copyists began to alter the ancient Gospel nearly as soon as it began to circulate. Some scribes did so unintentionally and others did so intentionally. From the very earliest two distinct textual families started to exist. These two textual versions or families existed during the second century. Perhaps the Chester Beatty Papyri also shows that these same two different textual families existed.

Followers of the Westcott, Hort, and Kenyon school maintain that we can go back to one textual family and this is the original Greek Textual family. Of course, this is their approved textual family. However, we have and will continue to demonstrate that two distinguishing Greek textual families did exist in the second century. The two well known textual families, the Only Begotten Son-Antiochian and the Only Begotten God-Alexandrian-Palestinian, were clearly defined and in usage. To make matters worse the so called heretics produced many texts adding to the confusion and distortion already in existence.

I now quote from another source:

http://sor.cua.edu/Bible/OldSyriac.html

The Old Syriac is known in Syriac as Evangelion Dampharshe meaning 'Gospel of the Separated [Evangelists]', in order to distinguish it from the Diatessaron, 'Gospel of the Mixed'. This translation was made at some point between the late second century and the early fourth century by a number of translators. Rather a literal translation, this was a rather free translation from the Greek. A series of revisions took place over a long period of time which brought the Old Syriac into closer line with the Greek. The original translation of the Old Syriac is lost, but we are fortunate to have two lacunous manuscripts which represent two different stages of the revisions: the Sinaiticus palimpsest and the Curetonianus manuscript .

Unlike the Diatessaron, the Old Syriac version was unknown to scholarship, not to mention the Syriac Church itself, until the discovery of two manuscripts. The Curetonianus manuscript was acquired, among others, by the British Museum and reached its new home on the first day of March 1843. Some further pages arrived in England and Berlin in the form of fly-leaves to strengthen the bindings of other manuscripts. The original home of the manuscript is Deir as-Surian, 'Monastery of the Syrians,' in Egypt. William Cureton, then assistant keeper of the manuscripts at the British Museum, discovered that the volume contains pre-Peshitto readings and concluded that he had discovered "the identical terms and expressions which the Apostle himself employed,"—an exaggeration. The most interesting characteristic of the Curetonianus manuscript is the unusual order of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, John and Luke, with Luke following John on the same page.

The Sinaiticus manuscript is a palimpsest; that is, a later scribe rubbed off the original writing of the Gospels and wrote a new text on top of it, a popular activity in antiquity when parchment was rare and expensive. The manuscript is preserved at the ancient library of St. Catherine Monastery in Sinai which contains many ancient Syriac manuscripts. This particular manuscript was discovered in 1892 by Agnes Lewis and her twin sister Margaret Gibson, two Scottish widows. They took 400 photographs of the manuscript and

40

sent them to Cambridge, England, where they were deciphered by two English scholars, Bensly and Burkitt, who concluded its affinity with the Curetonianus manuscript. It took many visits to the home of the manuscript in Sinai until the text was deciphered. A chemical reagent was used to help in reading the text, which, alas, contributed to the destruction of the manuscript. Recently, new photographs have been taken by Bruce Zuckermann (University of Southern California) and James Charlesworth (Princeton Theological Seminary) using the latest photographic techniques. Whether new readings will emerge from this endeavor remains to be seen. - George Kiraz, Ph.D, Feb 25, 2001.

Dr. Kiraz commented about the Peshitto:

In the early fifth century, the long process of revising the Old Syriac came to a halt, culminating in the Peshitto version. Hence, the Peshitto is not a new translation, but rather a revision of the Old Syriac Gospels. However, the Peshitto also contains the rest of the books of the New Testament except for the Minor Catholic Epistles (2 Peter, 2 and 3 John and Jude) and Revelation. To this day, readings from these books are not read in Syriac Churches. In the Peshitto manuscripts, the Catholic Epistles are placed between the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline Epistles.

The word Peshitto in Syriac means 'simple' or 'clear'. It was given this epithet in order to distinguish it from later versions, especially the Harklean which was a literal translation of the Greek resulting in obscure Syriac.

The Peshitto was able to triumph over all its rivals and became the authorized text of all the Syriac Churches to this day: Syrian Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, Maronite, Chaldaean, etc. Consequently, hundreds of Peshitto manuscripts survive with little variation between them. This, however, did not prevent Syriac churchmen from producing two further revisions: The Philoxenian and Harklean.

Syriac Sinaiticus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

(Redirected from Sinaitic Palimpsest)

The Syriac Sinaitic (syrsin), known also as Sinaitic Palimpsest of Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai is a late 4th century manuscript of 358 pages, containing a translation of the four canonical gospels of the New Testament into Syriac, which have been overwritten by a vita of female saints and martyrs with a date corresponding to AD 778. This palimpsest is the oldest copy of the gospels in Syriac, one of two surviving manuscripts that predate the Peshitta, the standard Syriac translation of the Bible. The other Syriac manuscript of the pre-Peshitta Syriac Bible, found in Egypt in 1842, is called the Cureton Manuscript after the orientalist William Cureton, who first identified and edited it in 1858.

Both manuscripts contain similar version of the Syriac gospels, which have been "conformed" to the four Greek gospels. In this sense of the word, the text has been corrected and re-edited to be made to conform to the Greek New Testament. Even so, the Sinaitic Palimpsest retains some readings from even earlier lost Syriac gospels and from the 2nd century Greek manuscripts , which brought the four gospels into harmony with one another through selective readings and emendations.

The importance of such early, least conforming texts is emphasized by the revision of the Peshitta that was made about 508, ordered by bishop Philoxenus of Mabbog. His revision, it is said, skillfully moved the Peshitta nearer to the Greek text; "it is very remarkable that

41

his own frequent gospel quotations preserved in his writings show that he used an Old Syriac set of the four gospels".[1]

The palimpsest was identified in the library at St. Catherine's in February 1892 by the intrepid Dr. Agnes Smith Lewis and her sister Margaret Dunlop Gibson, who returned with a team of scholars that included J. Rendel Harris, to photograph and transcribe the work in its entirety.[2]

The German theologian Adalbert Merx devoted much of his later research to the elucidation of the Sinaitic Palimpsest, the results being embodied in Die vier kanonischen Evangelien nach dem ältesten bekannten Texte (1897-1905).

The Sinaitic Palimpsest immediately became a central document in tracing the history of the New Testament. The palimpsest's importance lies especially in making the Greek New Testament manuscripts understandable to Aramaic speaking communities during that period. (see Aramaic primacy).

A palimpsest is a manuscript page, whether from scroll or book that has been written on, scraped off, and used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin from Greek παλιν + ψαω = ("again" + "I scrape"), and meant "scraped (clean and used) again." Romans wrote on wax-coated tablets that could be smoothed and reused, and a passing use of the rather bookish term "palimpsest" by Cicero seems to refer to this practice.

In Conclusion to this Chapter

With a bit of sadness we say farewell to the old Syrian Bibles. The present Syrian Bible conforms to the Constantine-Eusebius Texts. Its Christology is downgraded to teach the Begotten God concept. There is an original Greek Text in addition to the Constantine-Eusebius textual family and their images, the Syrian texts. Therefore, the Syrian serves no practical purpose in tracing the succession of the Words from the Father to His Only Begotten Son, and His Son’s Words to His Spiritual Seed, and the Gospel Seed after them.

God has clearly preserved His Sacred Words. The original Greek Texts are not contained in the present Syrian Texts. However, this is not true of the Old Italic or Latin Texts. The Lord God did preserve His Word to the Seed of Christ and their Gospel Seed. We shall now turn to the old Italic and its early history and usage.

42

Appendix to Chapter 3

Modern Decipherment

Faint legible remains were read by eye before 20th-century techniques helped make lost texts readable. Scholars of the 19th century used chemical means to read palimpsests that were sometimes very destructive, using tincture of gall or later, ammonium hydrosulfate. Modern methods of reading palimpsests using ultraviolet and photography are less damaging. Superexposed photographs exposed in various light spectra, a technique called "multispectral filming," can increase the contrast of faded ink on parchment that is too indistinct to be read by eye in normal light. Innovative digitized images aid scholars in deciphering unreadable palimpsests. Multispectral imaging, undertaken by researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins University, retrieved some four-fifths of the text of the Archimedes Palimpsest. More recently, at the Walters Art Museum where the palimpsest is now conserved, the project has focused on experimental techniques to retrieve the remaining fifth. One of the most successful of these techniques has proved to be x-ray fluorescence imaging, through which the iron in the ink is revealed, even under a forged over painting.

As a Form of Destruction

A number of ancient works have survived only as palimpsests.[2] Vellum manuscripts were over-written on purpose mostly due to the dearth or cost of the material. In the case of Greek manuscripts, the consumption of old codices for the sake of the material was so great that a synodal decree of the year 691 forbade the destruction of manuscripts of the Scriptures or the church fathers, except for imperfect or injured volumes. Such a decree put added pressure on retrieving the vellum on which secular manuscripts were written. The decline of the vellum trade with the introduction of paper exacerbated the scarcity, increasing pressure to reuse material.

Cultural considerations also motivated the creation of palimpsests. The demand for new texts might outstrip the availability of parchment in some centers, yet the existence of cleaned parchment that was never overwritten suggests that there was also a spiritual motivation, to sanctify pagan text by overlaying it with the word of God, somewhat as pagan sites were overlaid with Christian churches to hallow pagan ground. Or the pagan texts may have merely appeared irrelevant. Texts most susceptible to being overwritten included obsolete legal and liturgical ones, sometimes of intense interest to the historian. Early Latin translations of Scripture were rendered obsolete by Jerome's Vulgate. Texts might be in foreign languages or written in unfamiliar scripts that had become illegible over time. The codices themselves might be already damaged or incomplete. Heretical texts were dangerous to harbor: there were compelling political and religious reasons to destroy texts viewed as heresy, and to reuse the media was less wasteful than simply to burn the books.

Vast destruction of the broad quartos of the early centuries of our era took place in the period which followed the fall of the Roman Empire, but palimpsests were also created as new texts were required during the Carolingian renaissance. The most valuable Latin palimpsests are found in the codices which were remade from the early large folios in the seventh to the ninth centuries. It has been noticed that no entire work is generally found in any instance in the original text of a palimpsest, but that portions of many works have been taken to make up a single volume. An exception is the Archimedes palimpsest (see below). On the whole, Early Medieval scribes were indiscriminate in supplying themselves with material from any old volumes that happened to be at hand.

43

Some Famous Palimpsests

• The Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris: portions of the Old and New Testaments in Greek, attributed to the fifth century, are covered with works of Ephraem the Syrian in a hand of the twelfth century

• Among the Syriac manuscripts obtained from the Nitrian desert in Egypt, British Museum, London: important Greek texts

• Codex Nitriensis , a volume containing a work of Severus of Antioch of the beginning of the ninth century is written on palimpsest leaves taken from sixth century manuscripts of the Iliad and the Gospel of St Luke, both of the sixth century, and the Euclid's Elements of the seventh or eighth century, British Museum

• A double palimpsest, in which a text of St John Chrysostom, in Syriac, of the ninth or tenth century, covers a Latin grammatical treatise in a cursive hand of the sixth century, which in its turn covers the Latin annals of the historian Granius Licinianus, of the fifth century, British Museum.

• The only known hyper-palimpsest: the Novgorod Codex, in which maybe hundreds of texts have left their traces on the wooden back wall of a wax tablet

• The Ambrosian Plautus, in rustic capitals, of the fourth or fifth century, re-written with portions of the Bible in the ninth century, Ambrosian Library

• Cicero , De republica in uncials, of the fourth century, covered by St Augustine on the Psalms, of the seventh century, Vatican Library

• Codex Theodosianus of Turin, of the fifth or sixth century • the Fasti Consulares of Verona, of 486 • the Arian fragment of the Vatican, of the fifth century • the letters of Cornelius Fronto • the Archimedes Palimpsest, a work of the great Syracusan mathematician copied

onto parchment in the tenth century and overwritten by a liturgical text in the twelfth century

• Sinaitic Palimpsest • the unique copy of a Greek grammatical text composed by Herodian for the

emperor Marcus Aurelius in the second century, preserved in the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna

• Codex Zacynthius – Greek palimpsest fragments of the gospel of Saint Luke, obtained in the island of Zante, by General Colin Macaulay, deciphered, transcribed and edited by Samuel Prideaux Tregelles

• Codex Dublinensis (Codex Z) of St. Matthew's Gospel, at Trinity College Dublin, also deciphered by Tregelles

Other palimpsests (New Testament)

To the present day survived about sixty palimpsest manuscripts of the Greek New Testament. Uncial codices:

Guelferbytanus A, Porphyrianus, Guelferbytanus B, Vaticanus 2061 (double palimpsest), Uncial 064, 065, 066, 067, 068 (double palimpsest), 072, 078, 079, 086, 088, 093, 094, 096, 097, 098, 0103, 0104, 0116, 0120, 0130, 0132, 0133, 0135.

44

Chapter 4

Old Italic

Succession of the Word

As Christians spread from Jerusalem to Antioch with their sacred books they began translating the Scriptures into the Old Latin and Old Syrian. By about 150 AD they completed this task. The Old Latin Texts of both the Old and New Testaments began a journey into the Western world passing through Northern Africa and Westward until they came to Spain, Italy, France, and the remainder of Europe and what we now call the United Kingdom.

The Spread Westward

As the Christians spread west so did their Sacred Texts. In several localities newer churches were formed and the Sacred Books were soon copied and placed in the hands of the newer Christians. These copies would reflect the different characteristics of the localities of the new churches and the language variations of the times. While the original Old Latin text came from one common stemma out of Antioch, it passed into different forms with some variants as new copies were made in the different localities.

The Coming of Variants

Some variants were intentional and others were not. See Dean Burgon’s The Causes of the Corruption of the Received Text. This was the natural result of spreading Christianity and the Sacred Texts. No two scribes would be able to copy exactly the same. To copy by hand such a large project as the entire Sacred Text, New and Old Testaments, without some variants would be impossible. The variants that arose at first did not change the Sacred Text, but expressed more than one way to say the same things. However, as divisions over doctrinal matters arose do did the variants.

The Diocletian Persecution

Persecutions destroyed many Christians, their meeting houses, and their sacred Books. During the Diocletian Persecution many of the older Sacred Texts perished with burning meeting houses. Many of the older and leading believers perished and newer ones rose up. This necessitated the reproduction of the Sacred Scriptures. By this time the Sacred Texts had passed as far away as the British Isles into the West and into parts of what we call Russia and elsewhere. In the East most of the older Greek Texts, if not all of them, were destroyed during this persecution. Not only variants would cause differences in the reestablished Sacred Texts, but translating them from one language into another would increase the variants. Again the very Word of God would be passed on but the way of expressing certain doctrines and other ideas would vary due to translations, languages, localities, and theology. The impact of the conflicts between the Orthodox Clergy (so-called) and the Heretics (so-called) would also play an important part in the reestablishment of the Original Sacred Texts and their variants.

Here is an example of the Persecutions leading up to Diocletian:

At the beginning of the fourth century, Emperor Maximian (284-305) gave orders to destroy Christian churches, to burn service books, and to deprive all Christians of rights and privileges of citizenship.

45

At this time, the bishop of the city of Nicomedia was St. Cyril, who by his preaching and life contributed to the spread of Christianity, so that many members of the emperor’s court secretly became Christians. From the site: http://www.antiochian.org/node/17203

Latinizing the Greek

The translators and scribes compared and copied the oldest surviving texts inorder to reestablish the Sacred Texts. In the West these were the old Latin Texts. They predate the Great Greek Uncials by nearly one hundred years. The process of reestablishing the original Greek Texts by using the old Latin is called Latinizing the Greek. Following the Diocletian Persecution this was a regular manner of reproducing the ancient and original Greek texts.

At first it seems that when the believers produced their post-Diocletian texts they produced them in both Latin and Greek editions, side by side. These are called the Graeco-Latin Texts. Codex Bezae is an example of this and it dates back into the sixth century. Brother Mark Langley lists this as item 106. The complete title of this work is “Bezae Codex Cantabrigiensis, being an Exact Copy, in Ordinary Type, of the Celebrated Uncial Graeco-Latin Manuscript of the Four Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, Written Early in the Sixth Century, and Presented to the University of Cambridge by Theodore Beza, A.D. 1581.”

Before Constantine and Eusebius standardized the Greek texts, Western Christians used the Old Latin to stabilize the newer Greek Texts. After the C_E Bibles became the official Bibles of the Roman Empire, this process became reversed and the C-E Bibles became the standard for stabilizing and correcting the Latin and Syrian Bibles. This caused Manuscript Conformity and therefore shows why so many of the texts following the C-E Bibles are of the same type.

Soon the texts appeared in only one language. In this manner the old Latin and the Latinized Greek texts parted company. I shall cover the editing of the Byzantine Greek Texts in a later chapter. This chapter is devoted to the Old Latin Texts and their importance.

Latin Dissenters

The Byzantine Greek Texts resisted this method, as I shall cover in a later chapter, while the Western Latin Texts went into two different streams, the Dissenting Texts and Jerome’s Latin Vulgate. The Dissenters refused to conform to the growing Imperial Texts adopted by the Roman Empire. Many of them underwent the martyr’s death because of their loyalty to the older texts rather than conform to the newer Imperial texts. Biblical producers used these two different methods of Biblical Conformity, first they Latinized the Greek and then they Greekized the Latin and Syrian texts. Of course the Constantine-Eusebius Bible was the standard for this new process.

Dr. Sanday, author of The State of the Gospels in the Second Century, deals with these points AFTER the appearance of the C-E Bibles when the newer Greek Texts became the standard prototype, page 95.

46

Taken from, page 95:

47

Received from Brother Mark Langley’s E-Scriptorium at

48

http://www.solascripturapublishing.com:80/

From the site:

http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol02/Kiraz1997rev.htmlhttp://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol02/Kiraz1997rev.html1.

2. Among the versions of the New Testament, the two most important are the Latin and the Syriac. This is not only because of their age (the genesis of both can be dated to between roughly 150 and 180 C.E. [as evidenced by the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs for the Latin and the Diatessaron for the Syriac]), but also because of their positions as the hyparchetypes from which many other versions descend. For example, the Old High German and all the European vernacular versions (with the exception of the Gothic) are based on the Latin, not the Greek; in the East, the oldest Armenian, Arabic, and Georgian (via the Armenian) versions appear to be dependent upon a Syriac--not a Greek--base. The early date means that these versions (viz., the Latin and the Syriac) may preserve very ancient readings, present in the second-century Greek archetype from which they were translated. The fact that this is so is corroborated by the presence of identical variant readings in other late second- and early third-century sources (viz., the Fathers [e.g., Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, etc.] and the apocrypha [e.g., the Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas, the Protevangelium Iacobi, etc.]). The Syriac is also commended by the fact that it is in a Semitic language--"Christian Aramaic," in the words of F. C. Burkitt--virtually identical with the language presumably spoken by Jesus and his disciples. Hence, the diction, idioms, and syntax found in this version deserve special attention. If, as Papias (as per Eusebius) and Jerome and Epiphanius claim, a "Hebrew" or "Aramaic" Matthew circulated in the early church (Jerome even remarks that this Semitic-language Matthew was regarded as the "original" or "autograph" Matthew "by many": "...et quod uocatur a plerisque Mathei authenticum..." [Comm. Matt. II, apud 12:13 (CChr.SL 77, 90, 368-369)]), then its language would presumably have been similar to that found in our oldest Syriac version.

Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs

Aspects of this topic are discussed in the following places at Britannica.

Assorted References

• patristic literature ( in patristic literature (Christianity): Late 2nd to early 4th century )

...of Hermas were translated into Latin. The oldest original Latin texts are probably the Muratorian Canon, a late 2nd-century Roman canon, or list of works accepted as scripture, and the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs (180) of Africa.

• Scillitan Martyrs ( in Scillitan Martyrs (Christian martyrs) )

12 North African Christians from Scilla (or Scillium) in Numidia who were tried in Carthage under the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. The Acts of their martyrdom is the earliest authentic document on Christianity in North Africa and represents the earliest specimen of Christian...

49

12 North African Christians from Scilla (or Scillium) in Numidia who were tried in Carthage under the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. The Acts of their martyrdom is the earliest authentic document on Christianity in North Africa and represents the earliest specimen of Christian Latin. In brief legal form, the document (perhaps the official court transcript) names the seven men and five women, gives the date, and quotes the dialogue between the judge and those accused. Speratus, the Christians’ principal spokesman, claimed that he and his companions had lived quiet and moral lives, paid their dues, and did no wrong to their neighbours. But for refusing to apostatize (deny their faith) or swear by the “genius” of the emperor, they were executed on July 17, 180, by order of the Roman proconsul Saturninus.

from the Site: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/4693/Acts-of-the-Scillitan-Martyrs

Justin’s Greek and Tertullian’s Latin

Over the past several years I have observed a constant hated and agenda toward the Textus Receptus. I have found, until of recent years, a disregarding of the Old Latin. It is evident that the end result of this is to discredit the true and proper Biblical teachings about the Godhead of Jesus Christ and His honor and glory.

The Latin Fathers in early Christianity, starting with Tertullian, certainly possessed and cited from a Latin Bible just as the Greek Fathers, starting with Justin Martyr, possessed and cited from a Greek Bible. The Latin Bible of Tertullian and Justin’s Greek Text closely resemble each other showing their origin from one common source. They both used Texts that are very different from what we use today. See Justin’s Debate with Trypho the Jew and Tertullian’s Answer to the Jews. Justin’s text was in Greek and Tertullian’s was in Latin, yet they both possessed many of the same variants from our Textus Receptus and Greek and Hebrews texts that produced it. The Biblical Text, He shall rule from the Tree, is an example of them. For a brief, but accurate statement of this please see the site:

http://www.triumphpro.com/lxx.htm

Hatred Toward the Old Latin and the Dissents Who Used It

Dissenters such as the Priscillians used the Old Latin texts and not the newer and corrupted texts being made to conform to the C-E Bibles. The Dissenter Texts, or Old Latin, differed from what would later become known as the Latin Vulgate. Bishop Leo the Great from Rome, A D 440-463, strongly condemned the usage of the Priscillian Bibles and anathematized anyone who read or circulated them. I have a separate chapter investigating the Priscillians.

See the site: http://www.godrules.net/library/hefele/84hefele_d5.htm

By the force of the Imperial Roman Empire, Eusebius’ Greek Bible and Jerome’s Latin Bible became the establish texts of Constantine’s Holy Catholic Church. The Imperialists anathematized those who used other texts. Some Spanish Bishops and members of Constantine’s New Church murdered the Spanish dissenters and followers of Priscillian because they would not conform to Constantine’s new Creed or new church nor use his new Bible. This was near 385 AD. These and other like examples show the terrible hatred that the Imperialists possessed toward the older Italic Texts and those who used them.

50

The Establishment forced the Old Italic underground. Many of Jerome’s followers made attempts to conform the Old Latin to Jerome’s establish version. The Old Latin would reappear in such versions as the old German and the old French Bibles. When the King James translators began their work, they used some old Latin texts with other ancient Greek Manuscripts based on the Old Latin.

AD 385-463

From AD 385 to about 463, we have documented records, many from the writings of Leo the Great of Rome, that the Priscillians used the older Latin Text, added their notes to it and refused to use the newer texts that Jerome edited.

Please note the importance of the Old Latin in light of the following quote:

These Old Latin translations going back in their earliest forms to nearly the middle of the 2nd century are very early witnesses to the Greek text from which they were made. They are the more valuable inasmuch as they are manifestly very literal translations. Our great uncial manuscripts reach no farther back than the 4th century, whereas in the Old Latin we have evidence--indirect indeed and requiring to be cautiously used--reaching back to the 2nd century . The text of these Greek uncial manuscripts is neither dated nor localized, whereas the evidence of these Latin versions, coming from a particular province of the church, and being used by Fathers whose period is definitely known, enables us to judge of the type of Greek text then and there in use. In this connection, too, it is noteworthy that while the variations of which Jerome and Augustine complained were largely due to the blunders, or natural mistakes, of copyists, they did sometimes represent various readings in the Greek originals. (I cite this complete article and give its source later in this chapter. REP)

Kenyon on the Old Latin texts:

Kenyon on the Old Latin Version

The Old Latin Version

is consequently one of the most valuable and interesting evidences which we possess for the condition of the New Testament text in the earliest times. It exists, however, in a variety of forms, and its precise history is obscure. The conclusions at which Hort arrived were as follows.

It has already been said (p. 84) that it was originally made in the second century, perhaps not very far from AD 150, and probably, though not certainly, in Africa. Another version, apparently independent, subsequently appeared in Europe; and the divergences between these rival translations, as well as the extensive variations of text which found their way into both, made a revision necessary, which was actually produced in Italy in the fourth century, and to which Augustine refers as superior to its competitors. Hence it is that three different families or groups

51

can be traced - the African, the European, and the Italian. We are able to identify these several families by means of the quotations which occur in the writings of the Latin Fathers.

Thus the quotations of Cyprian, who died in 258, give us a representation of the African text; the European text is found in the Latin version of the works of Irenaeus, which was probably made at the end of the second century, or very shortly afterwards; while the Italian text appears conspicuously in Augustine (AD 354-430). By the help of such evidence as this we can identify the texts which are found in the various manuscripts of the Old Latin which have come down to us.

This distinction into three families, though accepted by Wordsworth and White, the editors of the Vulgate, has not been universally approved. Bentley in the past and Burkitt in our own day disputed the existence of the Italian revision, the latter arguing with much force that Augustine's "Italian" text was in fact Jerome's Vulgate, (This is not true- REP) which he certainly used in his longer quotations (such as could not be made from memory) in the latter part of his life. What is certain is that a distinction can be drawn between an extremer and a less extreme form of the Old Latin, and that the former is found in authorities connected with Africa (such as the manuscript mentioned below as k, and the quotations in Cyprian), and the latter in authorities connected with Europe (such as a and b). But the manuscripts differ very much among themselves (as Jerome complained), and probably no coherent history can be made of them.

Owing to the fact that the Vulgate eventually superseded the Old Latin as the Bible of the Western Church, manuscripts of the latter are scarce, but when they exist are generally very old.

No copy contains the whole of the New Testament, and very few are perfect even in the books which they contain. Thirty-eight manuscripts of the Old Latin exist; of these, twenty-eight contain the Gospels, four the Acts, five the Catholic Epistles, eight the Pauline Epistles, and three the Apocalypse, of which a practically complete text is also preserved to us in the commentary of Primasius, an African Father of the sixth century. Manuscripts of the Old Latin are indicated in critical editions by the small italic letters of the alphabet.

One of the oldest and best is the CODEX VERCELLENSIS 9A0, of which a facsimile is given in Plate XXIV. It contains the four Gospels, in the order usual in the Western Church - namely, Matthew, John, Luke, Mark. It is written in silver letters, in very narrow columns, on extremely thin vellum stains with purple.

The passage shown in the Plate is John xvi.23-30. In verse 26 this MS. has a curious reading, due to an accidental omission of words: instead of "Ye shall ask in my name; and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you," it has "ask in my name, and I will pray for you." The passage may be seen at the top of the second column: "in nomine meo petite et ego rogabo propter vos," the words "et ego" being added above the line. This manuscript was written in the fourth century, and is consequently as old as the oldest Greek uncials of the Bible. It is now at Vercelli in Italy.

Other important MSS. of the Old Latin are, for the Gospels, the CODEX VERONENSIS (b), of the fourth or fifth century, one of the most valuable of all; CODEX COLBERTINUS (c), an extraordinarily late copy, having been written in the twelfth century, in Languedoc, where the tradition of the Old Latin text lingered very late, but containing a good text; (This is Albigensian country and an old Albigensian text, REP.)

52

CODEX PALATINUS(e), fourth or fifth century, very incomplete, containing a distinctly African type of text;

CODEX BRIXIANUS (f), sixth century, with an Italian text;

CODEX BOBIENSIS (k), fifth or sixth century, containing the last half of Mark and the first half of Matthew in a very early form of the African text;

the Latin text of the CODEX BEZAE (d), for which see p.144.

In the Acts, there are CODEX BEZAE (d), as before;

the Latin text of the CODEX LAUDIANUS (e), see p.148;

CODEX GIGAS (g), of the thirteenth century, the largest manuscript in the world, containing the Acts and Apocalypse in the Old Latin version, the rest in the Vulgate; and some palimpsest fragments (h and s) of the fifth or sixth century.

The Catholic Epistles are very imperfectly represented, being contained only in the CODEX CORBEIENSIS, of St. James (f), of the tenth century, and portions of the other epistles in other fragmentary MSS.

The Pauline Epistles are known in the Latin version of the CODEX CLAROMONTANUS(d2), for which see p.148; e, f, g are similarly Latin versions of other bilingual manuscripts; and the remaining authorities are fragments.

The Apocalypse exists only in m of the Gospels and g and h of the Acts.

It must be remembered, however, that these MSS. are supplemented by the quotations in Latin Fathers, which are very numerous, and which show what sort of text each of them had before him when he wrote.

It may be interesting to mention which manuscripts represent the various families of the Old Latin text. The African text is found in k and (in a somewhat later form) e of the Gospels, h of the Acts and Apocalypse, in Primasius on the Apocalypse, and in Cyprian generally.

The Italian text, which is the latest of the three, appears in f and q of the Gospels, of the Catholic Epistles, r of the Pauline Epistles, and in Augustine. The remaining MSS. have, on the whole, European texts (b being an especially good example), but many of them are mixed and indeterminate in character, and some have been modified by the incorporation of readings from the Vulgate.

It has been said above (p.111) that the Old Latin version testifies to a type of Greek text of the class which has been described as "Western."

This applies especially to the African group of the Old Latin, which is often found in alliance with Codex Bezae. The European MSS. have less strongly marked divergences from the ordinary text, and may perhaps have been affected by comparison with Greek MSS.

53

The earlier forms of the Old Latin, however, are distinctly Western, as has been shown in describing the peculiar readings of this class of text; and since the original translation into Latin was made in the second century, and perhaps early in that century, it shows how soon considerable corruptions had been introduced into the text of the New Testament.

It is, indeed, especially in the earliest period of the history of the text that such interpolations as those we have mentioned can be introduced. At that time the books of the New Testament had not come to be regarded as on a level with those of the Old.

They were precious as a narrative of all-important facts; but there was no sense of obligation to keep their language free from all change, and additions or alterations might be made without much scruple. Hence arose the class of manuscripts of which the Old Latin version is one of the most important representatives. (This is incorrect, the proper persons who handled the N T manuscripts understand them to be inspired from God and made proper attempts to copy them accurately. Their corruptions came from careless scribes, overzealous so-called orthodox, and so-called heretics. This is the same as the corruptions to the Greek Texts. See Dean Burgon on Textual Corruptions. REP.)

From another source:

Bible Research > Ancient Versions > Latin > Old Latin

THE OLD LATIN VERSION

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915)

1. The Motive of Translation

The claim of Christianity to be the one true religion has carried with it from the beginning the obligation to make its Holy Scriptures, containing the Divine message of salvation and life eternal, known to all mankind. Accordingly, wherever the first Christian evangelists carried the gospel beyond the limits of the Greek-speaking world, one of the first requirements of their work was to give the newly evangelized peoples the record of God's revelation of Himself in their mother tongue. It was through the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament that the great truths of revelation first became known to the Greek and Roman world. It is generally agreed that, as Christianity spread, the Syriac and the Latin versions were the first to be produced; and translations of the Gospels, and of other books of the Old and New Testament in Greek, were in all probability to be found in these languages before the close of the 2nd century.

2. Multiplicity of Latin Translations in the 4th Century

Of the earliest translators of the Bible into Latin no record has survived. Notwithstanding the careful investigations of scholars in recent years, there are still many questions relating to the origin of the Latin Bible to which only tentative and provisional answers can be given. It is therefore more convenient to begin a study of its history with Jerome toward the close of the 4th century and the commission

54

entrusted to him by Pope Damasus to produce a standard Latin version, the execution of which gave to Christendom the Vulgate. The need for such a version was clamant. There existed by this time a multiplicity of translations differing from one another, and there was none possessed of commanding authority to which appeal might be made in case of necessity. It was the consideration of the chaotic condition of the existing translations, with their divergences and variations, which moved Damasus to commission Jerome to his task and Jerome to undertake it. We learn particulars from the letter of Jerome in 383 transmitting to his patron the first installment of his revision, the Gospels. "Thou compellest me," he writes, "to make a new work out of an old so that after so many copies of the Scriptures have been dispersed throughout the whole world I am as it were to occupy the post of arbiter, and seeing they differ from one another am to determine which of them are in agreement with the original Greek." Anticipating attacks from critics, he says, further: "If they maintain that confidence is to be reposed in the Latin exemplars, let them answer which, for there are almost as many copies of translations as manuscripts. But if the truth is to be sought from the majority, why not rather go back to the Greek original, and correct the blunders which have been made by incompetent translators, made worse rather than better by the presumption of unskillful correctors, and added to or altered by careless scribes?" Accordingly, he hands to the Pontiff the four Gospels to begin with after a careful comparison of old Greek manuscripts. (There was no Pontiff at that time, only a Bishop in Rome and many other Bishops, REP.)

From Jerome's contemporary, Augustine, we obtain a similar picture. "Translators from Hebrew into Greek," he says (De Doctrina Christiana, ii.11), "can be numbered, but Latin translators by no means. For whenever, in the first ages of the faith, a Greek manuscript came into the hands of anyone who had also a little skill in both languages, he made bold to translate it forthwith." In the same context he mentions "an innumerable variety of Latin translators," "a crowd of translators." His advice to readers is to give a preference to the Itala, "which is more faithful in its renderings and more intelligible in its sense." What the Itala is, has been greatly discussed. Formerly it was taken to be a summary designation of all the versions before Jerome's time. But Professor Burkitt (Texts and Studies, IV) strongly urges the view that by this term Augustine designates Jerome's Vulgate, which he might quite well have known and preferred to any of the earlier translations. However this may be, whereas before Jerome there were those numerous translations, of which he and Augustine complain, after Jerome there is the one preeminent and commanding work, produced by him, which in course of time drove all others out of the field, the great Vulgate edition, as it came to be called, of the complete Latin Bible. (This was not Jerome’s Vulgate as Augustine did not trust it or use it, but accused Jerome of using corrupted texts, REP.)

3. The Latin Bible before Jerome

We are here concerned with the subject of the Latin Bible before the time of Jerome. The manuscripts which have survived from the earlier period are known by the general designation of Old Latin. When we ask where these first translations came into existence, we discover a somewhat surprising fact. It was not at Rome, as we might have expected, that they were first required. The language of Christian Rome was mainly Greek, down to the 3rd century. Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans in Greek. When Clement of Rome in the last decade of the 1st century wrote an epistle in the name of the Roman church to the Corinthians, he wrote in Greek. Justin Martyr,

55

and the heretic Marcion, alike wrote from Rome in Greek. Out of 15 bishops who presided over the Roman See down to the close of the 2nd century, only four have Latin names. Even the pagan emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote his Meditations in Greek. If there were Christians in Rome at that period whose only language was Latin, they were not sufficiently numerous to be provided with Christian literature; at least none has survived.

4. First Used in North Africa

It is from North Africa that the earliest Latin literature of the church has come down to us. The church of North Africa early received a baptism of blood, and could point to an illustrious roll of martyrs. It had also a distinguished list of Latin authors, whose Latin might sometimes be rude and mixed with foreign idioms, but had a power and a fire derived from the truths which it set forth. One of the most eminent of these Africans was Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who won the martyr's crown in 257. His genuine works consist of a number of short treatises, or tracts, and numerous letters, all teeming with Scripture quotations. It is certain that he employed a version then and there in use, and it is agreed that "his quotations are carefully made and thus afford trustworthy standards of African Old Latin in a very early though still not the earliest stage" (Hort, Introduction to the New Testament in Greek, 78).

5. Cyprian's Bible

Critical investigation has made it clear that the version used by Cyprian survives in a fragmentary copy of Mark and Matthew, now at Turin in North Italy, called Codex Bobbiensis (k), and in the fragments of the Apocalypse and Acts contained in a palimpsest at Paris called Codex Floriacensis (h). It has been found that another MS, Codex Palatinus (e) at Vienna, has a text closely akin to that exhibited in Cyprian, although there are traces of mixture in it. The text of these manuscripts, together with the quotations of the so-called Speculum Augustini (m), is known among scholars as African Old Latin.

Another manuscript with an interesting history, Codex Colbertinus (c) contains also a valuable African element, but in many parts of the Gospels it sides also with what is called the European Old Latin more than with k or e. Codex Bobbiensis (k) has been edited with a learned introduction in the late Bishop John Wordsworth's Old Latin Biblical Texts, the relation of k to Cyprian as well as to other Old Latin texts being the subject of an elaborate investigation by Professor Sanday. That Cyprian, who was not acquainted with Greek, had a written version before him which is here identified is certain, and thus the illustrious bishop and martyr gives us a fixed point in the history of the Latin Bible a century and a half earlier than Jerome.

6. Tertullian's Bible

We proceed half a century nearer to the fountainhead of the African Bible when we take up the testimony of Tertullian who flourished toward the close of the 2nd century. He differed from Cyprian in being a competent Greek scholar. He was thus able to translate for himself as he made his quotations from the Septuagint or the Greek New Testament, and is thus for us by no means so safe a witness to the

56

character or existence of a standard version. Professor Zahn (GK, I, 60) maintains with considerable plausibility that before 210-240 AD there was no Latin Bible, and that Tertullian with his knowledge of Greek just translated as he went along. In this contention, Zahn is not supported by many scholars, and the view generally is that while Tertullian's knowledge of Greek is a disturbing element, his writings, with the copious quotations from both Old Testament and New Testament , do testify to the existence of a version which had already been for some time in circulation and use.

Who the African Wycliffe or Tyndale was who produced that version has not been recorded, and it may in fact have been the work of several hands, the result, as Bishop Westcott puts it, of the spontaneous efforts of African Christians (Canon of the NT7, 263).

7. Possible Eastern Origin of Old Latin

Although the evidence has, up to the present time, been regarded as favoring the African origin of the first Latin translation of the Bible, recent investigation into what is called the Western text of the New Testament has yielded results pointing elsewhere. It is clear from a comparison that the Western type of text has close affinity with the Syriac witnesses originating in the eastern provinces of the empire. The close textual relation disclosed between the Latin and the Syriac versions has led some authorities to believe that, after all, the earliest Latin version may have been made in the East, and possibly at Antioch. But this is one of the problems awaiting the discovery of fresh material and fuller investigation for its solution.

8. Classification of Old Latin Manuscripts

We have already noticed the African group, so designated from its connection with the great African Fathers, Tertullian and especially Cyprian, and comprising k, e, and to some extent h and m. The antiquity of the text here represented is attested by these African Fathers.

When we come down to the 4th century we find in Western Europe, and especially in North Italy, a second type of text, which is designated European, the precise relation of which to the African has not been clearly ascertained. Is this an independent text which has arisen on the soil of Italy, or is it a text derived by alteration and revision of the African as it traveled northward and westward? This group consists of the Codex Vercellensis (a) and Codex Veronensis (b) of the 4th or 5th century at Vercelli and Verona respectively, and there may be included also the Codex Vindobonensis (i) of the 7th century at Vienna. These give the Gospels, and a gives for John the text as it was read by the 4th-century Father, Lucifer of Cagliari in Sardinia. The Latin of the Greek-Latin manuscript D (Codex Bezae) is known as d, and the Latin of the translator of Irenaeus, are classed with this group.

Still later, Professor Hort says from the middle of the 4th century, a third type, called Italic from its more restricted range, is found. It is represented by Codex Brixianus (f) of the 6th century, now at Brescia, and Codex Monacensis (q) of the 7th century, at Munich. This text is probably a modified form of the European, produced by revision

57

which has brought it more into accord with the Greek, and has given it a smoother Latin aspect. The group has received this name because the text found in many of Augustine's writings is the same, and as he expressed a preference for the Itala, the group was designated accordingly. Recent investigation tends to show that we must be careful how we use Augustine as an Old Latin authority, and that the Itala may be, not a pre-Vulgate text, but rather Jerome's Vulgate. This, however, is still uncertain ; the fact remains that as far as the Gospels are concerned, f and q represent the type of text most used by Jerome.

9. Individual Characteristics

That all these groups, comprising in all 38 codices, go back to one original is not impossible. Still there may have been at first local versions, and then an official version formed out of them.

When Jerome's revision took hold of the church, the Old Latin representatives for the most part dropped out of notice. Some of them, however, held their ground and continued to be copied down to the 12th and even the 13th century. Codex c is an example of this; it is a manuscript of the 12th century, but as Professor Burkitt has pointed out ( Texts and Studies , IV, "Old Latin," 11) "it came from Languedoc, the country of the Albigenses . Only among heretics isolated from the rest of Western Christianity could an Old Latin text have been written at so late a period." An instance of an Old Latin text copied in the 13th century is the Gigas Holmiensis, quoted as Gig, now at Stockholm, and so called from its great size. It contains the Acts and the Apocalypse of the Old Latin and the rest of the New Testament according to the Vulgate. It has to be borne in mind that in the early centuries complete Bibles were unknown. Each group of books, Gospels, Acts and Catholic Epistles, Pauline Epistles, and Revelation for the New Testament, and Pentateuch, Historical Books, Psalms and Prophets for the Old Testament, has to be regarded separately. It is interesting, also, to note that when Jerome revised, or even retranslated from the Septuagint, Tobit and Judith of the Apocrypha, the greater number of these books, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and Baruch were left unrevised, and were simply added to the Vulgate from the Old Latin version.

10. Value of Old Latin for Textual Criticism

These Old Latin translations going back in their earliest forms to nearly the middle of the 2nd century are very early witnesses to the Greek text from which they were made. They are the more valuable inasmuch as they are manifestly very literal translations. Our great uncial manuscripts reach no farther back than the 4th century, whereas in the Old Latin we have evidence--indirect indeed and requiring to be cautiously used--reaching back to the 2nd century . The text of these Greek uncial manuscripts is neither dated nor localized, whereas the evidence of these Latin versions, coming from a particular province of the

58

church, and being used by Fathers whose period is definitely known, enables us to judge of the type of Greek text then and there in use. In this connection, too, it is noteworthy that while the variations of which Jerome and Augustine complained were largely due to the blunders, or natural mistakes, of copyists, they did sometimes represent various readings in the Greek originals.

LITERATURE

Wordsworth and White, Old Latin Biblical Texts, 4 volumes; F.C. Burkitt, "The Old Latin and the Itala," Texts and Studies, IV; "Old Latin VSS" by H.A.A. Kennedy in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes); "Bibelübersetzungen, Lateinische" by Fritzsche-Nestle in PRE3; Introductions to Textual Criticism of the New Testament by Scrivener, Gregory, Nestle, and Lake.

Thomas Nicol

Antiquity of the Old Latin Text Compared to the W-H Texts

The existence of the Old Latin Text predates the Great Uncials by a century or in some instances, even more. The Old Italic texts that I have consulted so far used solely and exclusively the Only Begotten Son in John 1:18. We would also mention that both Tertullian and Cyprian cited I John 5:7.

Cyprian stated:

He who breaks the peace and the concord of Christ, does so in opposition to Christ; he who gathereth elsewhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of Christ. The Lord says, “I and the Father are one;” and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, “And these three are one.” Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5, page 868.

Tertullian from His remarks on John’s Gospel:

What follows Philip’s question, and the Lord’s whole treatment of it, to the end of John’s Gospel, continues to furnish us with statements of the same kind, distinguishing the Father and the Son, with the properties of each. Then there is the Paraclete or Comforter, also, which He promises to pray for to the Father, and to send from heaven after He had ascended to the Father. He is called "another Comforter," indeed; but in what way He is another we have already shown, "He shall receive of mine," says Christ, just as Christ Himself received of the Father’s. Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent Persons, who are yet distinct One from Another. These Three are one essence, not one Person, as it is said, "I and my Father are One," in respect of unity of substance not singularity of number. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol.3, page 1128.

Early Latin Usage of John 1:18

Hyppolytus, [A.D. 170-236], did not use the expression, Only Begotten God. He did use the expression, only begotten Son, quoting John 1:18.

And who, again, is meant by Israel but a man who sees God? and there is no one who sees God except the Son alone, the perfect man who alone declares the will of the Father. For John also says, (page 466) “No man hath seen God at any time;

59

the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” And again: “He who came down from heaven testifieth what He hath heard and seen.” This, then, is He to whom the Father hath given all knowledge, who did show Himself upon earth, and conversed with men. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5.

Tertullian

Tertullian, [A.D. 145-220.] the supposed father of Latin Christianity, did not use the terms, Only Begotten God, but did use the terms Only Begotten Son from John 1:18 in the following:

“And we have seen His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father;” that is, of course, (the glory) of the Son, even Him who was visible, and was glorified by the invisible Father. And therefore, inasmuch as he had said that the Word of God was God, in order that he might give no help to the presumption of the adversary, (which pretended) that he had seen the Father Himself and in order to draw a distinction between the invisible Father and the visible Son, he makes the additional assertion, ex abundanti as it were: “No man hath seen God at any time.” What God does he mean? The Word? But he has already said: “Him we have seen and heard, and our hands have handled the Word of life.” Well, (I must again ask,) what God does he mean? It is of course the Father, with whom was the Word, the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and has Himself declared Him. He was both heard and seen and, that He might not be supposed to be a phantom, was actually handled. Him, too, did Paul behold; but yet he saw not the Father. “Have I not,” he says, “seen Jesus Christ our Lord?” Moreover, he expressly called Christ God, saying: “Of whom are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever.” He shows us also that the Son of God, which is the Word of God, is visible, because He who became flesh was called Christ. Of the Father, however, he says to Timothy: “Whom none among men hath seen, nor indeed can see;” and he accumulates the description in still ampler terms: “Who only hath immortality, and dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto.” The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 3. (page 1108 and 1109).

The Latin writers Tertullian, Hyppolytus, Cyprian, Cauis, and Novation, never used the terms Only Begotten God. When we find John 1:18 cited by the earliest Latin writers, it is always Only Begotten Son. I have never found the terms God only Begotten used by any of the Latin writers in the Ante-Nicene era.

In Conclusion to this Chapter

Tertullian and Cyprian cited the proper I John 5:7. Tertullian cited both I John 5:7 and John 1:18 properly.

Christology Is Our Concern

It might be well to state again, that my concern is Christology and not data gathering or textual classifications such as the Western Text or the African Text. I am not saying these are unimportant, but they do not compare to Christology. When we evaluate these old texts by their Christology then we determine their value. Our concern is the Christology of the old texts and their succession as the very Words of God.

The Old Latin Texts predate the Great Uncials by nearly a CENTURY. They came from a different Textual Family than the parent family of the Great Uncials, the Constantine-Eusebius Bibles. While it may be true that the oldest Greek Bible Canons we now have

60

support the Only Begotten God concept, they are far from being the oldest witnesses and best texts. Ignatius and Irenaeus are among many witnesses going back to the second century who show the existence of two different textual versions of John 1:18.

A third witness, cited from Lucian and Titian, shows a combination of the two texts, that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son, and God. Lucian, the editor and framer of the Byzantine textual family, strongly understood that our Lord was the Only Begotten Son and God or Divine. This agrees with John 1:1, 2, and 1Timothy 3:16.

A different Greek text existed early in the second century. It is older than the parent text of the Westcott-Hort family. It continues until now through the Old Latin texts and then the Textus Receptus. This ancient Greek text, we feel, is the original Antiochian Text. It supports the Only Begotten Son position. It is the stemma for both the Old Syrian and the Old Latin textual families. This ancient Greek text gives the true and proper witness to the Deity of Jesus Christ, His Sonship, and His Divine Blood, the blood of God. This supports the doctrine of Christ’s Hypostatic Union. It sets forth Jesus Christ as the Manifestation of God in the flesh. For an historical account of the stemma of this ancient text see Dean Burgon’s The Traditional Text.

61

Extended Latin Chapter

The Christology of the Old Latin Texts

The old Italic Texts that contain the Only Begotten Son reading also contain the Blood of God in Acts 20:28, and Christ as God Manifested in the flesh in 1 Tim. 3:16. Therefore, the followers of the Westcott-Hort Texts are incorrect in affirming that they use older and better texts. They do not! They use texts that conform to Constantine’s and Eusebius’ standards.

Antioch as the Birthplace of the Old Italic Texts

Contemporary testimony points us to Antioch as the birthplace of the Old Latin texts. The Gentile Church there translated the original Greek into the Old Latin near or before 150 AD. The Latin Fathers, Tertullian and Cyprian, used basically the same Old Latin Bible and this agrees with the same Greek Bible Justin Martyr used.

Originally the old Italic texts stood alone. Then, in the process of time, they were joined to friendly Greek texts showing their common family ties. One such is the famous Bezae Codex Cantabrigienses dating back to the sixth century. Please remember Christology is our basis, not textual classifications or data.

The Testimony of the Bezae Codex Cantabrigienses

John 1:18:

Acts 20:28:

From the Site: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/texts/junillus.trans.html

IUNILLI

INSTITUTA REGULARIA DIVINAE LEGIS

(542 AD)

16. In how many ways is the Son indicated?

D. In how many ways does Scripture speak about the Son?

M. Five. Now for instance,

(1) sometimes his godhead alone is indicated, and the assumption of flesh is secondarily understood, e.g., "The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father" (Jn 1:18).

We reject the Christology of this writer, but we joy in his usage of the true and proper John 1:18. Our Lord Jesus is not the only Begotten Son in His Deity, no begotten God, but only

62

in His Manhood. God the Father does not have a natural son, this is more ancient Greek mythology, but at least this writer does not use a distorted or corrupted text to support his corrupt Christology. The origin of his Latin Text was before such textual corruption.

The Influence of the Antiochian Tradition and Textual Family

The Christians fled to Antioch from Jerusalem taking the O. T. sacred Books with them. As the N. T. Textual Canon closed, the Antiochian Christians translated the Sacred Scriptures of both Testaments into Latin and Syrian. The Sacred Greek Texts we call the Koine or Byzantine texts came from the Antiochian tradition. The Old Latin, and Old Syrian Text now out of existence, came from this stemma. The newer Syrian texts have been made to conform to the C. E. Greek texts. Please remember the chapter on the Old Syrian Texts. The Antiochian Tradition and school of interpretation differed greatly from the Alexandrian School and Textual Tradition. Christological differences first formed this distinction and then Origin’s allegorical methods of interpretation further broadened the distinctions into an unbridgeable gulf.

Conclusion to the Extended Latin Chapter

In conclusion to this Extended Chapter, I will note some of the basic distinctions between Lucian and Origen and Antioch and Alexandria. From the following site I share several statements about these distinctions.

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/texts/junillus.trans.html

In order to understand the Christian learning environment that produced Junillus's Instituta Regularia Divinae Legis (c.542 C.E.), one must return to the ancient Hellenistic school. Although early Christianity encountered difficulties with the Greeks' love of Homer and the Pantheon, the Church Fathers maintained a pedagogic, linguistic, and even philosophical connection to the classical school of antiquity. Indeed, the Syriac theological schools in Edessa and Nisibis, where Paul, the original author of the Greek text transformed by Junillus into the Latin Instituta Regularia Divinae Legis, both learned and taught, were the inheritors of the classical Greek educational system formulated by Plato and deduced by Aristotle. This dependence on the ancient Greek school curriculum, conjoined with the Christian scholarship emerging from Antioch, provided the foundation for the eventual structure of the Christian school in Mesopotamia. With the advent of "evangelism," man, who had been trained in the classical arts of oratory and philosophy, could now open himself to grace, faith, baptism, and Christianity.

The schools of Edessa and Nisibis were natural outgrowths of this Christian dependence upon Greek educational standards. Their faculties and students, already acquainted with the hermeneutics of Aristotle, now were presented with a unique Greek-Syriac-Christian confection, in which the ultimate educational goal was the glorification of God's word through His beloved son, Jesus Christ.

In Egypt, in Syria, in Mesopotamia, Christianity brought new life into the languages of Egyptian and Aramaic, and concomitantly influenced the development of education and literature in Coptic and Syriac. Yet throughout antiquity, Christians rarely established their own theological schools, a fact which underscores not only the special nature of the theological schools of Edessa and Nisibis but also the significance of Junillus's Instituta Regularia Divinae Legis as a primary source of these Christian institutions of Late Antiquity. It is imperative, then, to first investigate the formulators of the doctrinal movements and the "schools" that antedated Edessa and Nisibis, as the composition

63

of these Syrian theological institutions was a synthesis of the philosophies, creeds, and exegetical principles that emerged in such loci as Antioch, Alexandria, and Mopsuestia.

Although there is no record of a formal school such as apparently existed at Alexandria, the "school" of Antioch represented a group of theologians that shared similar doctrinal characteristics. The scholars and teachers that were associated with the exegetical principles and Christology emerging from Antioch influenced profoundly the curricula and theological perspectives of the schools of Edessa and Nisibis.

There were two distinct periods in the history of the school of Antioch. The first period, beginning in the late third century and continuing to the early fourth century, was marked by the contributions of Lucian, who conducted an important didascalion about 270 C.E. Lucian's scholarly achievement was an edition of the Septuagint revised on the basis of the Hebrew Bible, a text that was accepted as authoritative both in Antioch and Constantinople. It seems likely that Lucian's work gave the theology of Antioch its Scriptural orientation toward historical and literal exegesis. In addition, Lucian, by defending his disciple Arius, became embroiled in a controversy over the divine and human natures of Christ. Henceforth, the great defenders of the humanity of Jesus were inextricably associated with the Antiochene school.

With respect to the subject of biblical exposition, the conflict between the school of Alexandria and the school of Antioch was clearly drawn. The Alexandrians adhered to the allegorical interpretation of Scripture; the Antiochenes were devoted to literal exegesis. The subject of Christology, however, elicited emotional and religious responses and distinctions that were to transcend these academic environs and affect the political and religious life and practice of Christianity in the Syrian Orient for centuries to come. Diodore of Tarsus helped initiate this controversy in the last decades of the fourth century by speaking of Christ as simultaneously representing the "Son of God" and the "Son of Mary." Mary was viewed by this Antiochene scholar as the mother of a man, rather than a mother of God. The Word of God and the Son of Mary were both Sons of God; the one by nature, the other by grace. These formulations served as the basis for the doctrinal creeds and exegetical writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia, whose expository writings served as the foundation and inspiration for the schools of Edessa and Nisibis, and particularly for Paul, the sixth century author of the manual of Scriptural exegesis, later to be known through the hand of Junillus as the Instituta Regularia Divinae Legis.

Nestorius used his position as bishop of Constantinople (428) to preach against the title Theotokos, "Mother of God," that was given to the Virgin Mary. He claimed a more authentic title should be the Mother of Christ. This doctrine was challenged by Cyril of Alexandria and, later, Pope Celestine, who anathematized Nestorius and condemned him as a heretic at the Council of Ephesus in 431.

Although much of Nestorius's sermons and teachings were ordered to be burned, the doctrine of Nestorianism survived and served as the basis for Dyophysite teachings in the fifth and sixth centuries, particularly at Nisibis, which had inherited the mantle of Syrian scholarship from Edessa. Fragments of Nestorius's letters and sermons have been preserved in the Acts of the Council of Ephesus, citations in the works of St. Cyril of Alexandria (Nestorius's creedal adversary), and through the interpolated Syriac text, The Bazaar of Heracleides, an apology, written near the end of his life (c. 436). (This work is in print, REP)

The Christological thought of Nestorius is dominated by Cappadocian theology and is influenced by Stoic philosophy. Although Nestorius never spoke of the human Jesus and the divine Jesus as "two sons," he did not consider him simply as a man. However, differing from Cyril of Alexandria, who

64

posited one sole nature (mia physis) in Christ, Nestorius defined a nature in the sense of ousia, "substance," and distinguished precisely between the human nature and the divine nature, applying in his Christology the distinction between nature (ousia) and person (hypostasis). Nestorius refused to attribute to the divine nature the human acts and sufferings of Jesus. This last statement underlines the ultimate difference between Nestorius and Cyril. Nestorius distinguished between the logos (the "divine nature") and Christ (the Son, the Lord), which he saw as a result of the union of the divine nature and the human nature.

The reputation of the School of Nisibis rested on its chair of biblical exegesis, headed by its first director and mepasqana, Narsai, who began his tenure in 489. As the School of Edessa served as the model for the School of Nisibis, so too were the Antiochene traditions of biblical exegesis, based on the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia, handed down by Narsai to his beloved students. Theodore resembled Judah HaNasi, the great compiler of the Jewish Oral Law (the Mishnah) at the end of the second century. Theodore collected and organized earlier theological and exegetical scholarship; he brought forth a synthesis in his writings that was unsurpassed by any of the succeeding generations of Christian theologians. The School of Nisibis adopted Theodore's exegetical method, which rejected the allegorical approach in favor of pure grammatical, historical, and typological analysis. Indeed, Paul's manual exemplifies Theodore's typological approach. The Nestorian community's opposition to the allegorical world of Alexandrian exegesis is reflected in Theodore's comment: "They, indeed, turn everything backwards, since they wish to make no distinction in the divine Scripture between what the text says and a dream in the night."

Under certain influences Origen was driven out of Alexandria and settled at Caesarea. There he founded a great library and academy. In a few years Eusebius would settle in Cesarean and further influenced and establish what is known as the Palestine Textual family. This family is a combination of Origen and Eusebius. It reflects the Origenian influence that originated from the Platonic concepts in Alexandria, Egypt. Egypt is well known to have been the hotbed for heretical groups from the very earliest ages of Christianity.

The Palestine-Alexandrian textual canon of Origen became the favorite text of Eusebius. By Constantine’s power Eusebius made Origen’s text the official Bible of the Holy Roman Empire., Origen’s Bible is now the unofficial official Bible of modern Christianity by the Westcott-Hort adoption and promotion.

Summations from the Old Latin Studies

As we take our leave from the Old Latin Texts and enter into the so-called better and older Greek Texts of Westcott and Hort, and their legions of mistakes, I want to present some basic and I feel, successfully uncontested points. After we consider these so called older and better texts of the scientific method of W-H, then I hope to present in-depth studies into the antiquity of some of the disputed texts and those who held to them, and other related items.

1. First, the W-H texts are not older and better than the Old Latin Texts. For every charge against the Old Italic that the W-H followers can bring, we can add more against their Greek Texts;

2. The Old Italic Texts are at least a century older than any of the W-H Greek Texts;3. The Old Italic are better texts because they teach a higher Christology than

the W-H Greek texts. For one example, they teach that Jesus is a Begotten Son,

65

not a begotten God, John 1:18, and another would be that Jesus’ Blood is Divine Blood, Acts 20:28;

4. The saints at Antioch translated the original Greek Old and New Testaments into the Old Latin text by 150 AD;

5. If the saints at Antioch were not the first to translate these Greek texts, then other Christians did this in Northern Africa;

6. We can reconstruct almost all of the entire New Testament from the Old Latin Bibles that the early Latin writers used before the Nicene Council;

7. We are able to identify the Latin Bibles of Tertullian and Cyprian;8. They both cited many of the disputed texts, and set forth the Christology and

theology taught in John 1:18 and I John 5:7;9. The Old Latin texts became united to the Old Greek texts and went forth in that

manner for several centuries, taking us back into the sixth century;10. When Christians began to reproduce the ancient Greek texts in the Western world,

they used the Latinized Greek Method, that is they corrected the Greek texts by the old Latin texts;

11. Many of the Christians in Northern Africa and the Western world used the old Latin Texts and reproduced their Bibles from them following the persecutions of Diocesan and other Pagan Emperors;

12. In the Western world, Spain, England, Ireland, and Wales, the Old Italic Text outlasted the Jerome Vulgate until the imperial sword and burning stake forced the old Italic underground;

13. Such dissenting groups as the Priscillians and the Welsh Baptists known as the Monks of Bangor, rejected the newer Latin Versions based on the newer and corrupted Constantine- Eusebius Bibles, even before Jerome’s Vulgate, and used the old Latin or Italic Bibles, until the imperial sword and burning stake converted their loud testimonies into silence;

14. Some great ministers such as St. Patrick up to the sixth century, used the Old Italic and refused to use Jerome’s Vulgate in their teaching and preaching in such places as England, Wales, and Ireland;

15. As late as the twelfth century such groups in Southern France, as the Albigenses, were still using and producing the Old Italic texts and joining it with the Vulgate when the Vulgate did not vary from the old Latin, see Albigensian chapter;

16. The Old Latin texts formed the stemma text for many of the newer translations of the Scriptures used by the anti-Papal Christians in the middle and later Dark Ages, even up to the Reformation;

17. Most, if not all, the established translators of the Ancient Scriptures into English used the Old Latin texts as one of their reliable contributing textual families for an accurate English Translation;

18. The Old Latin Texts may be considered properly as part of the building blocks to produce the Textus Receptus and the Textus Receptus of the Sacred Scriptures;

19. The Old Latin Texts teach a complete and high Christology while the Westcott-Hort Greek text down grades Him and is a part of the downgrader movement coming out of Oxford and Cambridge during the second half of the nineteenth century;

20. The Old Latin Texts join with the Textus Receptus and Textus Receptus in teaching the true and proper Begotten Sonship of Jesus Christ, John 1:18, that His blood is the Blood of God, setting forth the Hypostatic Union, in Acts 20:28, that Jesus Christ is God Manifested in the flesh, I Tim. 3:15; and that Jesus did make a blood atonement for us, as set forth in Colossians 1:14 and many other places omitted in the W-H Texts.

I have answered several of the objections against the Old Italic text elsewhere. I will continue to set forth the merits of the Old Italic text throughout the remainder of these studies when it is appropriate.

66

We should remember that if the W-H legions ask us which text should we use, we will answer, use the text that best Glorifies Jesus Christ. If this means a text that is mixed between the Old Italic and the Vulgate, and there are no variants in the Vulgate from the Old Latin, then so be it.

Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

2. Among the versions of the New Testament, the two most important are the Latin and the Syriac. This is not only because of their age (the genesis of both can be dated to between roughly 150 and 180 C.E. [as evidenced by the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs for the Latin and the Diatessaron for the Syriac]), but also because of their positions as the hyparchetypes from which many other versions descend. For example, the Old High German and all the European vernacular versions (with the exception of the Gothic) are based on the Latin, not the Greek; in the East, the oldest Armenian, Arabic, and Georgian (via the Armenian) versions appear to be dependent upon a Syriac--not a Greek--base. The early date means that these versions (viz., the Latin and the Syriac) may preserve very ancient readings, present in the second-century Greek archetype from which they were translated. The fact that this is so is corroborated by the presence of identical variant readings in other late second- and early third-century sources (viz., the Fathers [e.g., Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, etc.] and the apocrypha [e.g., the Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas, the Protevangelium Iacobi, etc.]).

From the Site:

http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol02/Kiraz1997rev.htmlhttp://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol02/Kiraz1997rev.html1.

I now conclude this summation by citing again Dr. Kenyon:

These Old Latin translations going back in their earliest forms to nearly the middle of the 2nd century are very early witnesses to the Greek text from which they were made. They are the more valuable inasmuch as they are manifestly very literal translations. Our great uncial manuscripts reach no farther back than the 4th century, whereas in the Old Latin we have evidence--indirect indeed and requiring to be cautiously used--reaching back to the 2nd century . The text of these Greek uncial manuscripts is neither dated nor localized, whereas the evidence of these Latin versions, coming from a particular province of the church, and being used by Fathers whose period is definitely known, enables us to judge of the type of Greek text then and there in use. In this connection, too, it is noteworthy that while the variations of which Jerome and Augustine complained were largely due to the blunders, or natural mistakes, of copyists, they did sometimes represent various readings in the Greek originals. (I cite this complete article and give its source later in this chapter. REP)

Kenyon on the Old Latin texts:

The Old Latin Version

is consequently one of the most valuable and interesting evidences which we possess for the condition of the New Testament text in the earliest times. It exists, however, in a variety of forms, and its precise history is obscure. The conclusions at which Hort arrived were as follows.

67

It has already been said (p. 84) that it was originally made in the second century, perhaps not very far from AD 150, and probably, though not certainly, in Africa. Another version, apparently independent, subsequently appeared in Europe; and the divergences between these rival translations, as well as the extensive variations of text which found their way into both, made a revision necessary, which was actually produced in Italy in the fourth century, and to which Augustine refers as superior to its competitors. Hence it is that three different families or groups can be traced - the African, the European, and the Italian. We are able to identify these several families by means of the quotations which occur in the writings of the Latin Fathers.

Thus the quotations of Cyprian, who died in 258, give us a representation of the African text; the European text is found in the Latin version of the works of Irenaeus, which was probably made at the end of the second century, or very shortly afterwards; while the Italian text appears conspicuously in Augustine (AD 354-430). By the help of such evidence as this we can identify the texts which are found in the various manuscripts of the Old Latin which have come down to us.

This distinction into three families, though accepted by Wordsworth and White, the editors of the Vulgate, has not been universally approved. Bentley in the past and Burkitt in our own day disputed the existence of the Italian revision, the latter arguing with much force that Augustine's "Italian" text was in fact Jerome's Vulgate, (This is not true- REP) which he certainly used in his longer quotations (such as could not be made from memory) in the latter part of his life. What is certain is that a distinction can be drawn between an extremer and a less extreme form of the Old Latin, and that the former is found in authorities connected with Africa (such as the manuscript mentioned below as k, and the quotations in Cyprian), and the latter in authorities connected with Europe (such as a and b). But the manuscripts differ very much among themselves (as Jerome complained), and probably no coherent history can be made of them.

Owing to the fact that the Vulgate eventually superseded the Old Latin as the Bible of the Western Church, manuscripts of the latter are scarce, but when they exist are generally very old.

No copy contains the whole of the New Testament, and very few are perfect even in the books which they contain. Thirty-eight manuscripts of the Old Latin exist; of these, twenty-eight contain the Gospels, four the Acts, five the Catholic Epistles, eight the Pauline Epistles, and three the Apocalypse, of which a practically complete text is also preserved to us in the commentary of Primasius, an African Father of the sixth century. Manuscripts of the Old Latin are indicated in critical editions by the small italic letters of the alphabet.

One of the oldest and best is the CODEX VERCELLENSIS 9A0, of which a facsimile is given in Plate XXIV. It contains the four Gospels, in the order usual in the Western Church - namely, Matthew, John, Luke, Mark. It is written in silver letters, in very narrow columns, on extremely thin vellum stains with purple.

The passage shown in the Plate is John xvi.23-30. In verse 26 this MS. has a curious reading, due to an accidental omission of words: instead of "Ye shall ask in my name; and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you," it has "ask in my name, and I will pray for you." The passage may be seen at the top of the second column: "in nomine meo petite et ego rogabo propter vos," the words "et ego" being added above the line. This manuscript was written in the fourth century, and is consequently as old as the oldest Greek uncials of the Bible. It is now at Vercelli in Italy.

Other important MSS. of the Old Latin are, for the Gospels, the CODEX VERONENSIS (b), of the fourth or fifth century, one of the most valuable of all; CODEX COLBERTINUS (c), an extraordinarily late copy, having been written in the twelfth century, in Languedoc, where the tradition of the Old Latin text lingered very late, but containing a good text; (This is Albigensian country and an old Albigensian text, REP.)

CODEX PALATINUS(e), fourth or fifth century, very incomplete, containing a distinctly African type of text;

CODEX BRIXIANUS (f), sixth century, with an Italian text;

68

CODEX BOBIENSIS (k), fifth or sixth century, containing the last half of Mark and the first half of Matthew in a very early form of the African text;

the Latin text of the CODEX BEZAE (d), for which see p.144.

In the Acts, there are CODEX BEZAE (d), as before;

the Latin text of the CODEX LAUDIANUS (e), see p.148;

CODEX GIGAS (g), of the thirteenth century, the largest manuscript in the world, containing the Acts and Apocalypse in the Old Latin version, the rest in the Vulgate; and some palimpsest fragments (h and s) of the fifth or sixth century.

The Catholic Epistles are very imperfectly represented, being contained only in the CODEX CORBEIENSIS, of St. James (f), of the tenth century, and portions of the other epistles in other fragmentary MSS.

The Pauline Epistles are known in the Latin version of the CODEX CLAROMONTANUS(d2), for which see p.148; e, f, g are similarly Latin versions of other bilingual manuscripts; and the remaining authorities are fragments.

The Apocalypse exists only in m of the Gospels and g and h of the Acts.

It must be remembered, however, that these MSS. are supplemented by the quotations in Latin Fathers, which are very numerous, and which show what sort of text each of them had before him when he wrote.

Some of the disputed texts may be indirectly and cautiously inferred from the debates between Sabellians and his opponents in Rome during the early part of the third century. Most of these were in the old Latin. For more on this please consider my studies on the Priscillians.

Finish

69

Chapter 5

Codex Vaticanus is one of the supposedly older and better manuscripts of the Westcott-Hort family. Upon the basis of this manuscript, and others like it, we are supposed to question the Byzantine Greek Text and its Christology. The problem with this manuscript is not its location, but its corruptions. It is not a safe manuscript to follow because its Christology is downgraded. All of the Greek Great Uncials have the only Begotten God in John 1:18. Codex Vaticanus contains many errors in addition to its downgrader Christology. As you read the evaluations about Codex Vaticanus, please ask yourselves why you should disregard the Textus Receptus, the Textus Receptus and the Christology of the Textus Receptus for Codex Vaticanus?

Codex Vaticanushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Vaticanus

The Codex Vaticanus, (The Vatican, Bibl. Vat., Vat. gr. 1209; no. B or 03 Gregory-Aland, 1 δ von Soden), is one of the oldest and most valuable extant manuscripts of the Greek Bible. The codex is named for its place of housing in the Vatican Library.[1] It is written in Greek, on vellum, with uncial letters.[2] The manuscript is one of the very few, and one of the two Greek manuscript of New Testament to be written with three columns per page (the other being Codex Vaticanus 2061). Because it was not often used, it has survived to the present day in very good condition. Codex is comprised in a single quarto volume containing 759 thin and delicate vellum leaves.[3] Until the discovery by Tischendorf of the Codex Sinaiticus, it was without a rival in the world.

Contents

Vaticanus originally contained a complete copy of the Septuagint ("LXX") except for 1-4 Maccabees and the Prayer of Manasseh. Genesis 1:1 - 46:28a (31 leaves) and Psalm 105:27 — 137:6b (20 leaves) are lost and have been filled by a later hand in the 15th century.[4] 2 Kings 2:5-7, 10-13 are also lost due to a tear in one of the pages. The order of the Old Testament books is as follows: Genesis to 2 Chronicles as normal, 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras (Ezra-Nehemiah), the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Esther, Judith, Tobit, the minor prophets from Hosea to Malachi, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Baruch, Lamentations and the Epistle of Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.

The extant New Testament of Vaticanus contains the Gospels, Acts, the General Epistles, the Pauline Epistles and the Epistle to the Hebrews (up to Heb 9:14, [ ); thus it lacks καθα ριει 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon and Revelation. These missing pages were replaced by a 15th century minuscule supplement (no. 1957).[2] Omitted passages include Matthew 16:2b-3, Mark 16:9-20, Luke 22:43-44, John 5:4, John 7:53-8:11 and Romans 16:24. It has not ending in the Gospel of Mark, but scribe was aware of it (in some manuscripts) and left empty column afte Gospel of Mark. It is only one empty column in this codex.

Description

Originally it was composed of 820 parchment leaves as 71 leaves have been lost. Currently, it conatins 617 leaves in Old Testament and 142 in New Testament. The codex is written in three columns per page, 42 lines per page, 16-18 letters per line. The size of the pages is 27 by 27 cm.[2] The Greek is written continuously with small neat writing, later retraced by a 10th (or 11th) century scribe. Punctuation is rare (accents and breathings have been added by a later hand) except for some blank spaces, diaeresis on initial iotas and upsilons, abbreviations of the nomina sacra and markings of OT citations. There are no enlarged initials, no stops or accents, no divisions into chapters or sections such as are found in later MSS.

70

Text

The Greek text of the codex is a representative of the Byzantine text-type. Aland placed it in Category I.[2]

Scribes and Correctors

The manuscript was written by three scribes, two of them wrote the Old Testament and one the New Testament (B1, B2, B3).

The manuscript contains mysterious double dots (so called "umlauts") in the margin of the New Testament, which seem to mark places of textual uncertainty. There are 795 of these in the text and around another 40 that are uncertain. The date of these markings are disputed among scholars and are discussed in a link below[5]. Two such "umlauts" can be seen in the left margin of the first column (top image).

On page 1512, next to Hebrews 1:3, the text contains an interesting marginal note, "Fool and knave, can't you leave the old reading alone and not alter it!"—"ἀ μαθέστατε καὶ , κακέ ἄ φες τὸ π , ν αλαιόν μὴ π "μετα οίει which suggests that inaccurate copying, either intentional or unintentional, was a known problem in scriptoriums.[6] The uppermost picture of this article shows the page where this remark is found (In the middle of the yellow page, between 1st and 2nd column).

Provenance

Its place of origin and the history of the manuscript is uncertain, with Rome (Hort), southern Italy, Alexandria (Kenyon,[7] Burkitt[8]), and Caesarea (T. C. Skeat) all having been suggested. A connection with Egypt is indicated by the order of the Pauline epistles and by the fact that, as in the Codex Alexandrinus, the titles of some of the books contain letters of a distinctively Coptic character, especially the Coptic mu, which is used not only in titles, but also very frequently at the ends of lines, when space is to be economised.[9]

There has been speculation that it had previously been in the possession of Cardinal Bessarion because the minuscule supplement has a text similar to one of Bessarion's manuscripts. According to Paul Canart's introduction to the recent facsimile edition, p. 5, the decorative initials added to the manuscript in the Middle Ages are reminiscent of Constantinopolitan decoration of the 10th century, but poorly executed, giving the impression that they were added in the 11th or 12th century. T. C. Skeat, a paleographer at the British Museum, first argued that Codex Vaticanus was among the 50 Bibles that the Emperor Constantine I ordered Eusebius of Caesarea to produce[10]. The similarity of the text with the papyri and Coptic version (including some letter formation), parallels with Athanasius' canon of 367 suggest an Egyptian or Alexandrian origin.

It is dated to the first half of the 4th century. It is likely slightly older than Codex Sinaiticus, which also was transcribed in the 4th century. One argument is that Sinaiticus already has the, at that time, very new Eusebian Canon tables, but Vaticanus doesn't. Another is the slightly more archaic style of Vaticanus, and more complete absence of ornamentation, caused it to be regarded as slightly the older than Sinaiticus.[11

In the Vatican Library

The manuscript has been housed in the Vatican Library (founded by Pope Nicholas V in 1448) for as long as it has been known, appearing in its earliest catalog of 1475 and in the 1481 catalogue. In catalog from 1481 it was described as a "Biblia in tribus columnis ex memb."[11]

In the 16th century it became known for scholars in result of the correspondence between Erasmus and the prefects of the Vatican Library (Paulus Bombastius, Sepúlveda) in 1521-1534.[12]

71

In 1669 a collation was made by Bartolocci, librarian of the Vatican, but it was not published, and was not used until Scholz in 1819 found a copy of it in the Royal Library at Paris. Another collation was made in 1720 for Bentley by Mico, and revised by Rulotta. A further collation was made by Gray Birch in 1780, but it was incomplete.[7]

Before the 19th century no scholar was allowed to study or edit it. In 1809 Napoleon brought it as a victory trophy to Paris, but in 1815 it was returned to the Vatican Library. In that time, in Paris, German scholar Johann Leonhard Hug (1765-1846) saw it.[13] Cardinal Angelo Mai printed an edition in 1828 and 1838, which, however, did not appear till 1857, three years after his death, and which was most unsatisfactory. [14] It was called by Tischendorf "Pseudo-facsimile". In 1843 Tischendorf was permitted to make a facsimile of a few verses,[15] in 1844 — Eduard de Muralt saw it,[16] and in 1845 — S. P. Tregelles was allowed to observe several points which Muralt had overlooked. He often saw the codex, but "it was under such restrictions that it was impossible to do more than examine particular readings."[17]

"They would not let me open it without searching my pockets, and depriving me of pen, ink, and paper; and at the same time two prelati kept me in constant conversation in Latin, and if I looked at a passage too long, they would snatch the book out of my hand".[18]

Tregelles left Rome after five months without accomplishing his object. During a large part of the 19th century, the authorities of the Vatican Library obstructed scholars who wished to study the codex in detail. Henry Alford in 1849 wrote: “It has never been published in facsimile (!) nor even thoroughly collated (!!).” [19]

Scrivener in 1861 commented:

"To these legitimate sources of deep interest must be added the almost romantic curiosity which has been excited by the jealous watchfulness of its official guardians, with whom an honest zeal for its safe preservation seems to have now degenerated into a species of capricious wilfulness, and who have shewn a strange incapacity for making themselves the proper use of a treasure they scarcely permit others more than to gaze upon". [20] It (...) "is so jealously guarded by the Papal authorities that ordinary visitors see nothing of it but the red morocco binding".[3]

Thomas Law Montefiore (1862):

"The history of the Codex Vaticanus B, No. 1209, is the history in miniature of Romish jealousy and exclusiveness.” [21]

In 1889-1890 a photographic facsimile of the whole manuscript was made and published by Giuseppe Cozza-Luzi, in three volumes.[14] Another facsimile of the New Testament text was published in 1904 in Milan.[22] As a result the codex became widely available.

Importance

Codex Vaticanus is one of the most important manuscripts for the text of the Septuagint and Greek New Testament, it is a leading member of the Alexandrian text-type. It was heavily used by Westcott and Hort in their edition, The New Testament in the Original Greek (1881). In the Gospels, it is the most important witness of the text, in Acts and Catholic epistles, equal to Codex Sinaiticus, in Pauline epistles it has some Western readings and the value of its text is a little lower than of the Codex Sinaiticus. Unfortunately the manuscript is not complete. Possibly it had some apocryphal books of New Testament (like codices Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus).

Summaton

1. Codex Vaticanus is of the Alexandrian-Palestinian text-type, it is not Byzantine. It came from the Origen influence, not the Antiochian-Lucian influence;

72

2. It abounds with many doubtful and corrected statements, there are at least 795 "umlauts";

3. An "umlauts" makred off an uncertain text. How can it be a better text?4. It’s Christology is distorted and downgraded, so how can it produce a better

testimony to Jesus Christ than the Old Latin or Byzantine texts?5. It was mostly unused by the ancient writers and Scribes in early Christianity;6. It was heavenly used by Westcott and Hort, but not by the Christians of the early

ages, what does this teach us?

The very fact that Codex Vaticus is a downgrader text, downgrading Jesus Christ, making Him into a Begotten God, rather than a self-existent Divine Being, and it discounts His Divine Blood, failing to set forth the Hypostatic Union in Acts 20:28, with many other irregular ommissions about the Blood of Jesus Christ, and does not set Him forth as the Manifestation of God, suggests that this is one of the Constintine-Eusebius texts of little usage in early Christianity.

Now, the legions of Westcott and Hort fans follow their masters from Oxford and Cambridge and would have us set aside the High Christology of the Textus Receptus and Textus Receptus in favor of this little used Origen-Constintine-Eusebius, Westcort-Hort Bible, well, I think not!

Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

2 John 9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.

Finish

73

Chapter 6

Codex Sinaiticus

Codex Sinaiticus is the main foundation of the entire Westcott-Hort structure. This is not a Byzantine or Koine Greek text coming from the Lucian-Antioch influence and tradition. Sinaiticus can be traced back from Egypt to Palestine through Origen. When Origen fled from Alexandria he brought his corrupted texts with him. Codex Sinaiticus is a fruit of Origen’s corrupted Egyptian texts.

Jerome’s Reliance upon the Sinaiticus

When Jerome developed his Vulgate he refused to use the Lucian-Antioch textual family. In the process of time the Old Italic and the Vulgate became a mixed text. The Influence of the Old Latin texts forced Jerome to place in his Vulgate many of the disputed passages that the Constantine-Eusebius Bibles omitted. Jerome improved the Sinaiticus. However, the Westcott-Hort researches did not recognize these improvements nor include them.

Should We Reject the Textus Receptus in Favor of the Sinaiticus?

As you read the info about Codex Sinaiticus, please ask yourself if we should reject the Textus Receptus and its Christology on the basis of Codex Sinaiticus? Does Sinaiticus present a higher or lower Christology than the Textus Receptus and the Textus Receptus? It, like Vaticanus, is a downgrader text receiving accreditation only among those who follow the so-called scientific method during the era of the Great Christian Apostasy. Like Vaticanus, Sinaiticus makes Christ into a Begotten God, omits that His blood is the blood of God, with other omitted statements about Christ’s blood, and does not set Him forth as the only Manifestation of God in the flesh.

As you read the following about Sinaiticus, please keep in mind that this is the most corrected manuscript of all time! How can this be a better text than the Byzantine and old Latin Texts? Should we say, because it is older it is better? Well, let us remember that the Old Latin is at least a century older than the Codex Sinaiticus. I will place all the comments about manuscript corrections in Bold Red.

The followers of the Westcott-Hort School maintain, falsely, that this Text goes back to near 250 AD. It does not. The Manuscript, in its present form goes back no further than the twelfth century.

The followers of the Westcott-Hort textual school pretend that this is an accurate representation of the original Greek New Testament Manuscripts. It is not. From its birth in about 450 AD in its earliest form, it has passed through at least 9 scribes and correctors into its present form.

The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most corrected manuscripts in the entire world. These corrections started in its origin in about 450 and lasted up to the twelfth century. Should we allow such a Manuscript to replace the time tested and honored Byzantine-Textus Receptus and its Christology?

74

About Codex Sinaiticus

Taken from the site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus

B. H. Streeter remarked a great agreement between the codex and Vulgate of Jerome. According to him Origen brought to Caesarea the Alexandrian text-type which was used in this codex, and used by Jerome.[19]

Between the 4th and 12th centuries, nine correctors worked on this codex , making it one of the most corrected manuscripts in existence . [20] Tischendorf during his investigation in Petersburg enumerated 14 800 corrections only in portion which was held in Petersburg (2/3 of the codex).[21] It means all the codex can have about 20 000 corrections. In addition to these corrections some letters were marked by dots as doubtful (e.g. ṪḢ). Corrections represent the Byzantine text-type, just like in codices: Bodmer II, Regius (L), Ephraemi (C), and Sangallensis ( ). They were discovered by Button.Δ [22]

Early History of Codex Sinaiticus

Little is known of the manuscript's early history. According to Hort, it was written in the West, probably Rome. Kenyon, Gardthausen, Ropes and Jellicoe thought it was written in Egypt. Harris, Streeter,[18] Skeat, and Milne tended to think that it was produced in Caesarea. It was written in the fourth century. It could not have been written before A.D. 325 because it contains the Eusebian Canons, and it is a terminus post quem. It could not be written after A.D. 360 because of certain references to Church fathers in the margin. It means A.D. 360 is a terminus ad quem.[7]

According to Tischendorf, Codex Sinaiticus was one of the fifty copies of the Bible commissioned from Eusebius by Roman Emperor Constantine after his conversion to Christianity (De vita Constantini, IV, 37).[22] T. C. Skeat believed that it was already in production when Constantine placed his order, but had to be suspended in order to accommodate different page dimensions.[13]

The Work of Several Scribes

Tischendorf also believed that four separate scribes copied the work (whom he named A, B, C and D) and that five correctors (whom he designated a, b, c, d and e) amended portions. He posited that one of the correctors was contemporaneous with the original scribes, and that the others dated to the sixth and seventh centuries. Modern analysis identifies at least three scribes. Scribe B was a poor speller, and scribe A was not not very much better; the best scribe was D.[7] Scribe A wrote most of the historical and poetical books of the Old Testament, and almost the whole of the New Testament.[7][23] It is now agreed, after Milne and Skeat's reinvestigation, that Tischendorf was wrong—scribe C never existed.[24] According to Tischendorf, scribe C wrote poetic books of the Old Testament. These are written in a different format from the rest of the manuscript — they are in two columns (the rest of books is in four colums) and written stichometrically. Tischendorf probably interpreted the different formatting as indicating the existence of another scribe.[25] The three remaining scribes are still identified by the letters that Tischendorf gave them: A, B, and D.[25] Correctors were more, at least seven (a, b, c, ca, cb, cc, e).[1]

75

A paleographical study at the British Museum in 1938 found that the text had undergone several corrections. The first corrections were done by several scribes before the manuscript left the scriptorium. In the sixth or seventh century, many alterations were made, which, according to a colophon at the end of the book of Esdras and Esther states, that the source of these alterations was "a very ancient manuscript that had been corrected by the hand of the holy martyr Pamphylus" (martyred AD 309). If this is so, material which begin with 1 Samuel to the end of Esther is Origen's copy of the Hexapla. From this colophon, the correction is concluded to have been made in Caesarea Maritima in the 6th or 7th centuries.[26] The pervasive iotacism, especially of the ει diphthong, remains uncorrected.

Eusebian Canons

Eusebian canons or Eusebian sections, also known as Ammonian Sections, are the system of dividing the four Gospels used between late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The divisions into chapters and verses used in modern texts date only from the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries respectively. The sections are indicated in the margin of nearly all Greek and Latin manuscripts of the Bible, and usually summarized in Canon Tables at the start of the Gospels (see below). There are about 1165 sections: 355 for Matthew, 235 for Mark, 343 for Luke, and 232 for John; the numbers, however, vary slightly in different manuscripts.

The Harmony of Ammonius suggested to Eusebius, as he himself tells us in his letter, the idea of drawing up ten tables (kanones) in which the sections in question were so classified as to show at a glance where each Gospel agreed with or differed from the others. In the first nine tables he placed in parallel columns the numbers of the sections common to the four, or three, or two, evangelists; namely: (1) Matt., Mark, Luke, John; (2) Matt., Mark, Luke; (3) Matt., Luke, John; (4) Matt., Mark, John; (5) Matt., Luke; (6) Matt., Mark; (7) Matt., John; (8) Luke, Mark; (9) Luke, John. In the tenth he noted successively the sections special to each evangelist.

The usefulness of these tables for the purpose of reference and comparison soon brought them into common use, and from the fifth century the Ammonian sections, with references to the Eusebian tables, were indicated in the margin of the manuscripts. Opposite each section was written its number, and underneath this the number of the Eusebian table to be consulted in order to find the parallel texts or text; a reference to the tenth table would of course show that this section was proper to that evangelist. These marginal notes are reproduced in several editions of Tischendorf's New Testament.

Eusebius's explanatory letter to Carpianus was also very often reproduced before the tables. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusebian_Canons

Hyperspectral imaging

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hyperspectral imaging collects and processes information from across the electromagnetic spectrum. Unlike the human eye, which just sees visible light, hyperspectral imaging is more like the eyes of the mantis shrimp, which can see visible light as well as from the ultraviolet to infrared. Hyperspectral capabilities enable the mantis shrimp to recognize different types of coral, prey, or predators, all which may appear as the same color to the human eye.

76

Humans build sensors and processing systems to provide the same type of capability for application in agriculture, mineralogy, physics, and surveillance. Hyperspectral sensors look at objects using a vast portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Certain objects leave unique 'fingerprints' across the electromagnetic spectrum. These 'fingerprints' are known as spectral signatures and enable identification of the materials that make up a scanned object.

Codex Sinaiticus

(London, Brit. Libr., Add. 43725; Gregory-Aland nº (Aleph) א or 01) is a 4th century uncial manuscript of the Greek Bible, written between 330–350. While it originally contained the whole of both Testaments, only portions of the Greek Old Testament or Septuagint survive, along with a complete New Testament, the Epistle of Barnabas, and portions of The Shepherd of Hermas (suggesting that the latter two may have been considered part of Biblical canon by the editors of the codex[citation needed]). Along with Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most valuable manuscripts for textual criticism of the Greek New Testament, as well as the Septuagint.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Sinaiticus

Along with Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most valuable manuscripts for establishing the original text -see textual criticism - of the Greek New Testament, as well as the Septuagint. It is the only uncial manuscript with the complete text of the New Testament, and the only ancient manuscript of the New Testament written in four columns per page which has survived to the present day. [1]

Only 300 years away from the original manuscripts of the New Testament, it is highly important and considered a very accurate copy as opposed to most of the later copies, "preserving obviously superior readings where the great mass of later manuscripts is in error ". [4]

In the Gospels, Sinaiticus is the second most important witness of the text (after Vaticanus); in the Acts of the Apostles, its text is equal to that of Vaticanus; in the Epistles, Sinaiticus is the most important witness of the text. In the Book of Revelation, however, its text is corrupted and not good quality; it is inferior to the texts of Codex Alexandrinus, Papyrus 47, and even some minuscule manuscripts in this place (f.e. Minuscule 2053, 2062).[7]

http://www.answers.com/topic/palimpsest

Eusebius Pamphilus, the Imperil Bible Collector and Corruptor

THE ORATION OF EUSEBIUS PAMPHILUS, IN PRAISE OF THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE

Thus universal is the agency of the Word of God: everywhere present, and pervading all things by the power of his intelligence, he looks upward to his Father, and governs this lower creation, inferior to and consequent upon himself, in accordance with his will, as the common Preserver of all things. Intermediate, as it were, and attracting the created to the uncreated Essence, this Word of God exists as an unbroken bond between the two, uniting things most widely different by an inseparable tie. He is the Providence which rules the universe; the guardian and director of the whole: he is the Power and Wisdom of God the only-begotten God, the Word begotten of God himself. For “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him and without him was not any thing made that hath been made”; as we learn from the words of the sacred writer? The Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. 1; Eusebius’ Church History pages 891, 892.

77

And hence we are assured by the clear testimony of the sacred Herald, that the Word of God, who is before all things, must be the sole Preserver of all intelligent beings: while God, who is above all, and the Author of the generation of the Word, being himself the Cause of all things, is rightly called the Father of the Word, as of his only-begotten Son, himself acknowledging no superior Cause. God, therefore, himself is One, and from him proceeds the one only-begotten Word, the omnipresent Preserver of all things. . . While God, who is above all, and the Author of the generation of the Word, being himself the Cause of all things, is rightly called the Father of the Word, as of his only-begotten Son, himself acknowledging no superior Cause. God, therefore, himself is One, and from him proceeds the one only-begotten Word, the omnipresent Preserver of all things. Ibid., p. 893.

Summation of Eusebius’s Teaching

Please remember that Eusebius is speaking of the Deity of Jesus Christ, not the Sacred Scriptures. In Eusebius’ mind the Word is the Only Begotten of God. It is any wonder then that the Eusebius-Constantine Bibles are to corrupted and present such a downgraded testimony about Jesus Christ, presenting Him as a Begotten God, in His essential deity? We would ask where the Scriptures say that God is the Father of the Word, speaking of the essential Deity of our Lord Jesus Christ?

Summation of the Codex Sinaiticus

1. Sinaiticus is one of the most corrected manuscripts in the world;2. nine correctors worked on this codex; 3. The first corrections were done by several scribes before the manuscript

left the scriptorium;4. Tischendorf also believed that four separate scribes copied the work and

that five correctors amended portions. He posited that one of the correctors was contemporaneous with the original scribes, and that the others dated to the sixth and seventh centuries.

5. Critics now say only 3 three original scripbes copied this work.6. In the sixth or seventh century, many alterations were made these have

continued until the twelfth century;7. How then can it be the one of the best in the world since it underwent a

series of corrections between the years 450 and the end of the twelfth century?

Here is a pretended summation of why Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most important Manuscripts for establishing the original Greek Text:

Along with Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus is one of the most valuable manuscripts for establishing the original text -see textual criticism - of the Greek New Testament, as well as the Septuagint. It is the only uncial manuscript with the complete text of the New Testament, and the only ancient manuscript of the New Testament written in four columns per page which has survived to the present day. [1]

Only 300 years away from the original manuscripts of the New Testament, it is highly important and considered a very accurate copy as opposed to most of the later copies, "preserving obviously superior readings where the great mass of later manuscripts is in error ". [4]

I note the following:

1. This is not an Lucian-Byzantine, but an Alexandrian-Palestinian text type;2. How do we know it has the complete text of the New Testament? We don’t,

in fact, it omits several verses of the New Testament;

78

3. While its origin as a manuscript may be only 300 years away from the original manuscripts of the New Testament, by the time all the correctors made many alterations on it, its date in its present and corrected form reaches no further back than the twelfth century;

4. So how can it be among the oldest and the closest to the original Greek Manuscripts?

5. It may have been among the oldest in its original and first state, but not now;

6. In its present state Codex Sinaiticus is no older than the twelfth century.

7. We have Latin-Greek manuscripts that reach back to the fourth century and even before.

8. This is one of the Constantine-Eusebius Bibles. 9. It deserves no more serious consideration as a valid example of the New

Testament text than Constantine’s new church deserves to be considered as an example of the original Church that Christ built;

10. Please note this well, Constantine’s Codex Sinaiticus no more represents the original Greek Manuscripts than Constantine’s new Papal Church represents the original New Testament church;

The most important manuscript in the Westcott-Hort school is no older in its present and often corrected form than the twelfth century!

No fewer than nine (9) scribes and corrections worked over a period of nearly 2 centuries, 450-600, to produce what most consider the most important (?) manuscript in the Westcott-Hort school.

Where does this leave the so-called important Textus Sinaiticus? It is nothing more than the most corrected Biblical Mauscript in the world and dates no further back than the twelfth century in its present form.

Codex Sinaiticus is a Palestintine-Alexandrian text type and downgrades Jesus Christ by teaching that He is a begotten God, not a begotten Son, just as all the Palestintine-Alexandrian texts do.

By omission it denies the Divine Blood of Jesus Christ in Acts 20:28, and therefore denied the Hypostatic Union. We are taught nowhere in Codex Sinaiticus that Jesus’ blood is the blood of God!

By omission Codex Sinaiticus denies that Jesus Christ is the Only Manifestation of God in the Flesh!

Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.

79

2 John 9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.10 If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:11 For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds.

Chapter 7

Codex Alexandrinus

Codex Alexandrinus (British Museum)

http://www.katapi.org.uk/BibleMSS/Ch7.htm#A

This has been one of the chief treasures of the British Museum since its foundation, and a volume of it may be seen, side by side with the Sinaiticus, by every visitor in one of the showcases in the Department of Manuscripts. Its history, at least in later years, is much less obscure than that of the Sinaiticus.

In 1624 it was offered by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, to Sir Thomas Roe, our ambassador in Turkey, for presentation to King James I. King James died before the manuscript started for England, and the offer was transferred to Charles I.

In 1627 the gift was actually accomplished, and the MS. remained in the possession of our sovereigns until the Royal Library was presented to the nation by George II, when it entered its present home.

Its earlier history is also partially traceable.

Cyril Lucar (according to contemporary statements) brought it to Constantinople from Alexandria, of which see he had previously been Patriarch; and an Arabic note at the beginning of the MS., signed by "Athanasius the humble" (possibly Athanasius III, Patriarch of Alexandria, who died about 1308), states that it was a gift to the Patriarchal cell in that town. A later Latin note adds that the gift was made in AD1098, but the authority for this statement is unknown.

Another Arabic note, written in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, states that the MS. was written by Thecia the martyr; and Cyril Lucar himself repeats this statement, with the additions that Thecia was a noble lady of Egypt, that she wrote it shortly after the Council of Nicaea (AD 325), and that her name was originally written at the end of the manuscript.

This, however, was only tradition, since the end of the MS. had been lost long before Cyril's time.

80

The authority for the tradition is quite unknown, and so early a date is hardly possible.

The occurrence in the manuscript of treatises (see Ch.5, p.67) by Eusebius (d. AD 340) and Athanasius (d. AD 373) makes it almost certain that it cannot be earlier than the middle of the fourth century, and competent authorities agree that the style of writing probably shows it to be somewhat later, in the first half of the fifth century.

It is certain that the writing of this MS. appears to be somewhat more advanced than that of the Vaticanus or Sinaiticus, especially in the enlargement of initial letters and similar elementary ornamentation; but it must be remembered that these characteristics are already found in earlier MSS., and that similar differences between contemporary MSS. may be found at all periods.

The dating of early Greek uncials on vellum is still very doubtful for want of materials to judge from, and it is possible that the tradition mentioned above is truer than is generally supposed; but for the present it is safer to acquiesce in the general judgment which assigns the manuscript to the fifth century.

Like the Codex Sinaiticus, it contained originally the whole Greek Bible, with the addition of the two Epistles of Clement of Rome, which in very early days ranked almost with the inspired books; and, in addition, the table of contents shows that it originally included the Psalms of Solomon, the title of which, however, is so separated from the rest of the books as to indicate that they were regarded as standing on a different footing.

The Old Testament has suffered some slight mutilations, which have been described already; the New Testament more seriously, since the whole of St. Matthew's Gospel, as far as chapter xxv.6, is lost, together with leaves containing John vi. 50- viii. 52 (where, however, the number of pages missing shows that the doubtful passage, vii.53-viii.11, cannot have been present when the MS. was perfect), and 2 Cor.iv.13-.6, one leaf of the first Epistle of Clement and the greater part of the second.

The leaves measure 12.75 by 10.25 inches, having two columns to each page, written in large and well-formed hands of round shape, apparently by two scribes in the Old Testament and three in the New [Messrs. Milne and Skeat, in an appendix to their study of the Sinaiticus, identify the scribes of the New Testament with the first scribe of the Old Testament, chiefly on the ground of the forms of the flourishes at the ends of the several books; but this seems to ignore certain marked differences of script.], with initial letters enlarged and projecting into the margin.

The text has been corrected throughout by several different hands, the first being nearly or quite contemporary with the original scribe. The facsimile given in Plate XVI shows the upper part of the page containing John iv.42-v.14.

81

In column 1, line 6, it will be seen that this MS. contains the words "the Christ"; and a reference to the Variorum Bible footnote shows that it is supported by C3 (i.e., the third corrector of C), D, L (with the later MSS.), while א, B, C (with the Old Latin, Vulgate, Bohairic, and Curetonian Syriac versions) omit the words, and are followed by all the editors except McClellan. Though D and L represent pre-Syrian testimony, the balance of that testimony, as contained in א , B, and the versions, overweighs them.

More important readings will be seen in the second column, which contains the story of the cure of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda. It will be seen (lines 13, 14) that an alteration has been made in the MS., and that certain letters have been rewritten over an erasure, while others are added in the margin.

The words which are thus due to the corrector, and not to the original scribe, are those which are translated "halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel of the Lord."

A close examination shows that the first and last parts of the passage originally occupied line 14, before the erasure; but the words in italics are an addition which was not in the original text.

They are also omitted (see the Variorum Bible footnote) by B, C, L, with the ,א Guretonian Syriac and the Sahidic versions.

They are found only in D, the corrections of A and G, and later MSS., and are thus inevitably omitted by nearly all the editors. With regard to verse 4 the distribution of evidence is different.

It is omitted, like the former words, by א, B, C, the Curetonian Syriac, most MSS. of the Bohairic and the Sahidic versions; and these are now joined by D, which in the previous case was on the other side. On the other hand, A and L have changed in the contrary direction, and are found to support the verse, in company with Thus the versions are fairly equally divided; but א, B, C, D form a very strong group of early authority, as against A and the mass of later MSS. L and the Old Latin are, in fact, the only witnesses to the verse which can be considered as pre-Syrian, and consequently we find the Revised Version omits the verse, in common with Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Westcott and Hort; Lachmann and McClellan alone appearing on the other side.

(Brethren, please go to the site for this paragraph, for some reason it will not carry over without being missed up, I have tried several times, REP)

B, C, D form a very strong group of early authority, as against A and the mass of later MSS. L and the Old Latin are, in fact, the only witnesses to the verse which can be considered as pre-Syrian, and consequently we find the Revised Version

82

omits the verse, in common with Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Westcott and Hort; Lachmann and McClellan alone appearing on the other side.

Specimens of scribes' errors and their corrections may be seen in lines 1, 2, 26-28. In the former the words first written have been erased, and the correct reading written above them; in the latter, some words had been written twice over by mistake (λεγει αυτω θελεις υγιης γενεσθαι λεγει αυτω θελεις υγιης γενεσθαι απεκριυη αυτω - legei auto theleis ugies gevesthai legei auto theleis ugies genesthai apekrithe auto).

The whole passage (from the first γενεσθαι) has been erased, and then correctly rewritten, with a slight variation (λεγει for απεκριθη); but as the correct reading was much shorter than that originally written, a considerable space is left blank, as the facsimile shows.

As regards the quality of the text preserved in the Codex Alexandrinus, it must be admitted that it does not stand quite so high as its two predecessors in age,

and B. Different parts of the New Testament have evidently been copied from א different originals; but in the Gospels, at any rate, A is the oldest and most pre-eminent example of that revised "Syrian" text which (to judge from the quotations in the Fathers) had become the predominant text as early as the fourth century. It will often be found at the head of the great mass of later uncials and cursives which support the received text; and although it is much superior to the late cursives from which the "received text" was in fact derived, it yet belongs to the same class, and will be found oftener in agreement with the Authorised Version than with the Revised. In the Acts and Epistles it ranks definitely with B and א, and is perhaps an even better example of that class than they. In the Apocalypse also it belongs to the Neutral type, and is probably the best extant MS. of that book, with the possible exception of P47. The Epistles of Clement, which are very valuable for the history of the early Church, the first having been written about the end of the first century and the other before the middle of the second, were until quite recently not known to exist in any other manuscript. The Eusebian sections and canons, referred to above (p.132), are indicated in the margins of the Gospels, which also exhibit the earliest example of a division into chapters.

A similar division of the Acts and Epistles, ascribed to Euthalius of Alexandria, who wrote about AD 458, is not found in this manuscript; and this is an additional reason for believing it not to have been written later than the middle of the fifth century.

(Please go to the original site as posted above)

83

The Codex Alexandrinus was the first of the greater manuscripts to be made accessible to scholars.

The Epistles of Clement were published from it by Patrick Young in 1633, a collation of the New Testament and notes on the Pentateuch were published in Walton's Polyglot (1657), the Old Testament was printed by Grabe in 1707-20, and the New Testament by Woide in 1786.

In 1816-28 the Rev. H. H. Baber published the Old Testament in type resembling as closely as possible the writing of the original. Finally a photographic reproduction of the whole MS. was published in 1879-83, under the editorship of E. Maunde Thompson, then Principal Librarian of the British Museum. A reduced facsimile of the New Testament, and of the Old Testament as far as Judith, has since appeared (1909-36).

Codex Alexandrinus

M S M Saifullah

© Islamic Awareness, All Rights Reserved.

First Composed: 4 April 2000

Last Updated: 4 April 2000

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/Mss/alexander.html

Name

Codex Alexandrinus (A, 02, 4)

Date

5th Century CE.

Size

84

Written on vellum, 32.1 cm. x 26.4 cm. There are two columns and 46-52 lines to the column. The ink is brown.

Contents

It has both the Old and New Testaments. The New Testament contains Four Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles and Pauline Epistles (including Hebrews), Apocalypse, and I and II Clement.

Total number of leaves are 773, out of which 143 belong to the New Testament.

The text is Byzantine in the Gospels and Alexandrian in the Pauline Epistles.

Writing

The words are written continuously without separation. Accents are absent and breathing are rare. The Old Testament quotations are indicated.

It is believed that the codex is the work of five scribes, who are designated by the Roman numerals. The Old Testament was copied by two hands (I and II) and the New Testament by three (III, IV and V). III wrote Matthew, Mark and I Corinthians 10:8 - Philemon 25; IV copied Luke, John, Acts, the Catholic Epistles, and Romans 1:1 - I Corinthians 10:8; and V wrote the Apocalypse.

Salient Features

Matthew 1:1-25:6 is lost. The longer ending of Mark is given. Luke 22:43 f. is omitted. John 5:4 is present and not marked as doubtful or spurious. There is a lacuna at John 7:53-8:11. The doxology of Romans is found after 14:23 and also after 16:23, 16:24 being omitted. Hebrews follow immediately after II Thessalonians.

Location

British Museum, London, United Kingdom.

References

[1] W. H. P. Hatch, The Principal Uncial Manuscripts Of The New Testament, 1939, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Plate XVII.

85

The New Testament Manuscripts

Chapter 7

(My Introduction

In evaluating the claim that the W-H texts come from older and better Manuscripts than the Textus Receptus text types, we will measure the Codes Alex against the Lucian Textus Receptus just as we have done Sin and Vaticanus. We will show that the Codex Alex is not a better text, nor is it older. We continue to support the Lucian or Antiochian Textus Receptus. The following evaluations and reports show why. REP)

Codex Alexandrinus

Codex Alexandrinus (British Museum)

http://www.katapi.org.uk/BibleMSS/Ch7.htm#A

This has been one of the chief treasures of the British Museum since its foundation, and a volume of it may be seen, side by side with the Sinaiticus, by every visitor in one of the showcases in the Department of Manuscripts. Its history, at least in later years, is much less obscure than that of the Sinaiticus.

In 1624 it was offered by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, to Sir Thomas Roe, our ambassador in Turkey, for presentation to King James I. King James died before the manuscript started for England, and the offer was transferred to Charles I.

In 1627 the gift was actually accomplished, and the MS. remained in the possession of our sovereigns until the Royal Library was presented to the nation by George II, when it entered its present home.

Its earlier history is also partially traceable.

86

Cyril Lucar (according to contemporary statements) brought it to Constantinople from Alexandria, of which see he had previously been Patriarch; and an Arabic note at the beginning of the MS., signed by "Athanasius the humble" (possibly Athanasius III, Patriarch of Alexandria, who died about 1308), states that it was a gift to the Patriarchal cell in that town. A later Latin note adds that the gift was made in AD1098, but the authority for this statement is unknown.

Another Arabic note, written in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, states that the MS. was written by Thecia the martyr; and Cyril Lucar himself repeats this statement, with the additions that Thecia was a noble lady of Egypt, that she wrote it shortly after the Council of Nicaea (AD 325), and that her name was originally written at the end of the manuscript.

This, however, was only tradition, since the end of the MS. had been lost long before Cyril's time.

The authority for the tradition is quite unknown, and so early a date is hardly possible.

The occurrence in the manuscript of treatises (see Ch.5, p.67) by Eusebius (d. AD 340) and Athanasius (d. AD 373) makes it almost certain that it cannot be earlier than the middle of the fourth century, and competent authorities agree that the style of writing probably shows it to be somewhat later, in the first half of the fifth century.

It is certain that the writing of this MS. appears to be somewhat more advanced than that of the Vaticanus or Sinaiticus, especially in the enlargement of initial letters and similar elementary ornamentation; but it must be remembered that these characteristics are already found in earlier MSS., and that similar differences between contemporary MSS. may be found at all periods.

The dating of early Greek uncials on vellum is still very doubtful for want of materials to judge from, and it is possible that the tradition mentioned above is truer than is generally supposed; but for the present it is safer to acquiesce in the general judgment which assigns the manuscript to the fifth century.

Like the Codex Sinaiticus, it contained originally the whole Greek Bible, with the addition of the two Epistles of Clement of Rome, which in very early days ranked almost with the inspired books; and, in addition, the table of contents shows that it originally included the Psalms of Solomon, the title of which, however, is so separated from the rest of the books as to indicate that they were regarded as standing on a different footing.

The Old Testament has suffered some slight mutilations, which have been described already; the New Testament more seriously, since the whole of St. Matthew's Gospel, as far as chapter xxv.6, is lost, together with leaves containing John vi. 50- viii. 52 (where, however, the number of pages missing shows that the doubtful passage, vii.53-viii.11, cannot have been present when the MS. was perfect), and 2 Cor.iv.13-.6, one leaf of the first Epistle of Clement and the greater part of the second.

The leaves measure 12.75 by 10.25 inches, having two columns to each page, written in large and well-formed hands of round shape, apparently by two scribes in the Old Testament and three in the New [Messrs. Milne and Skeat, in an appendix to their study of the Sinaiticus, identify the scribes of the New Testament with the first scribe of the Old Testament, chiefly on the ground of the forms of

87

the flourishes at the ends of the several books; but this seems to ignore certain marked differences of script.], with initial letters enlarged and projecting into the margin.

The text has been corrected throughout by several different hands, the first being nearly or quite contemporary with the original scribe. The facsimile given in Plate XVI shows the upper part of the page containing John iv.42-v.14.

In column 1, line 6, it will be seen that this MS. contains the words "the Christ"; and a reference to the Variorum Bible footnote shows that it is supported by C3 (i.e., the third corrector of C), D, L (with the later MSS.), while א, B, C (with the Old Latin, Vulgate, Bohairic, and Curetonian Syriac versions) omit the words, and are followed by all the editors except McClellan. Though D and L represent pre-Syrian testimony, the balance of that testimony, as contained in א , B, and the versions, overweighs them.

More important readings will be seen in the second column, which contains the story of the cure of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda. It will be seen (lines 13, 14) that an alteration has been made in the MS., and that certain letters have been rewritten over an erasure, while others are added in the margin.

The words which are thus due to the corrector, and not to the original scribe, are those which are translated "halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel of the Lord."

A close examination shows that the first and last parts of the passage originally occupied line 14, before the erasure; but the words in italics are an addition which was not in the original text.

They are also omitted (see the Variorum Bible footnote) by א, B, C, L, with the Guretonian Syriac and the Sahidic versions.

They are found only in D, the corrections of A and G, and later MSS., and are thus inevitably omitted by nearly all the editors. With regard to verse 4 the distribution of evidence is different.

It is omitted, like the former words, by א, B, C, the Curetonian Syriac, most MSS. of the Bohairic and the Sahidic versions; and these are now joined by D, which in the previous case was on the other side. On the other hand, A and L have changed in the contrary direction, and are found to support the verse, in company with Thus the versions are fairly equally divided; but א, B, C, D form a very strong group of early authority, as against A and the mass of later MSS. L and the Old Latin are, in fact, the only witnesses to the verse which can be considered as pre-Syrian, and consequently we find the Revised Version omits the verse, in common with Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Westcott and Hort; Lachmann and McClellan alone appearing on the other side.

(Brethren, please go to the site for this paragraph, for some reason it will not carry over without being missed up, I have tried several times, REP)

88

B, C, D form a very strong group of early authority, as against A and the mass of later MSS. L and the Old Latin are, in fact, the only witnesses to the verse which can be considered as pre-Syrian, and consequently we find the Revised Version omits the verse, in common with Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Westcott and Hort; Lachmann and McClellan alone appearing on the other side.

Specimens of scribes' errors and their corrections may be seen in lines 1, 2, 26-28. In the former the words first written have been erased, and the correct reading written above them; in the latter, some words had been written twice over by mistake (λεγει αυτω θελεις υγιης γενεσθαι λεγει αυτω θελεις υγιης γενεσθαι απεκριυη αυτω - legei auto theleis ugies gevesthai legei auto theleis ugies genesthai apekrithe auto).

The whole passage (from the first γενεσθαι) has been erased, and then correctly rewritten, with a slight variation (λεγει for πα εκριθη); but as the correct reading was much shorter than that originally written, a considerable space is left blank, as the facsimile shows.

As regards the quality of the text preserved in the Codex Alexandrinus, it must be admitted that it does not stand quite so high as its two predecessors in age,

and B. Different parts of the New Testament have evidently been copied from א different originals; but in the Gospels, at any rate, A is the oldest and most pre-eminent example of that revised "Syrian" text which (to judge from the quotations in the Fathers) had become the predominant text as early as the fourth century. It will often be found at the head of the great mass of later uncials and cursives which support the received text; and although it is much superior to the late cursives from which the "received text" was in fact derived, it yet belongs to the same class, and will be found oftener in agreement with the Authorised Version than with the Revised. In the Acts and Epistles it ranks definitely with B and א, and is perhaps an even better example of that class than they. In the Apocalypse also it belongs to the Neutral type, and is probably the best extant MS. of that book, with the possible exception of P47. The Epistles of Clement, which are very valuable for the history of the early Church, the first having been written about the end of the first century and the other before the middle of the second, were until quite recently not known to exist in any other manuscript. The Eusebian sections and canons, referred to above (p.132), are indicated in the margins of the Gospels, which also exhibit the earliest example of a division into chapters.

A similar division of the Acts and Epistles, ascribed to Euthalius of Alexandria, who wrote about AD 458, is not found in this manuscript; and this is an additional reason for believing it not to have been written later than the middle of the fifth century.

(Please go to the original site as posted a boveas a)

89

The Codex Alexandrinus was the first of the greater manuscripts to be made accessible to scholars.

The Epistles of Clement were published from it by Patrick Young in 1633, a collation of the New Testament and notes on the Pentateuch were published in Walton's Polyglot (1657), the Old Testament was printed by Grabe in 1707-20, and the New Testament by Woide in 1786.

In 1816-28 the Rev. H. H. Baber published the Old Testament in type resembling as closely as possible the writing of the original. Finally a photographic reproduction of the whole MS. was published in 1879-83, under the editorship of E. Maunde Thompson, then Principal Librarian of the British Museum. A reduced facsimile of the New Testament, and of the Old Testament as far as Judith, has since appeared (1909-36).

__________________________________________________________________

Codex Alexandrinus

M S M Saifullah

© Islamic Awareness, All Rights Reserved.

First Composed: 4 April 2000

Last Updated: 4 April 2000

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/Mss/alexander.html

Name

4)Codex Alexandrinus (A, 02,

Date

5th Century CE.

Size

90

Written on vellum, 32.1 cm. x 26.4 cm. There are two columns and 46-52 lines to the column. The ink is brown.

Contents

It has both the Old and New Testaments. The New Testament contains Four Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles and Pauline Epistles (including Hebrews), Apocalypse, and I and II Clement.

Total number of leaves are 773, out of which 143 belong to the New Testament.

The text is Byzantine in the Gospels and Alexandrian in the Pauline Epistles.

Writing

The words are written continuously without separation. Accents are absent and breathing are rare. The Old

Testament quotations are indicated.

It is believed that the codex is the work of five scribes, who are designated by the Roman numerals. The Old Testament was copied by two hands (I and II) and the New Testament by three (III, IV and V). III wrote Matthew, Mark and I Corinthians 10:8 - Philemon 25; IV copied Luke, John, Acts, the Catholic Epistles, and Romans 1:1 - I Corinthians 10:8; and V wrote the Apocalypse.

Salient Features

Matthew 1:1-25:6 is lost. The longer ending of Mark is given. Luke 22:43 f. is omitted. John 5:4 is present

and not marked as doubtful or spurious. There is a lacuna at John 7:53-8:11. The doxology of Romans is

found after 14:23 and also after 16:23, 16:24 being omitted. Hebrews follow immediately after II Thessalonians.

Location

British Museum, London, United Kingdom.

References

[1] W. H. P. Hatch, The Principal Uncial Manuscripts Of The New Testament, 1939, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Plate XVII.

The New Testament Manuscripts

91

___________________________________________

Codex Alexandrinus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Alexandrinus

The Codex Alexandrinus (London, British Library, MS Royal 1. D. V-VIII; Gregory-Aland no. A or 02, Soden δ 4) is a 5th century manuscript of the Greek Bible,[n 1] containing the majority of the Septuagint and the New Testament.[1] It received the name Alexandrinus from its having been brought by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch Cyril Lukar from Alexandria to Constantinople.[2] Wettstein designated it in 1751 by letter A,[3] and it was the first manuscript to receive thus a large letter as its designation.[4]

Along with the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus, it is one of the earliest and most complete manuscripts of the Bible. It derives its name from Alexandria where it resided for a number of years before being given to the British people in the 17th century. Until the later purchase of the Codex Sinaiticus, it was the best manuscript of the Greek Bible deposited in Britain.[n 2] Today, it rests along with Codex Sinaiticus in one of the prominent showcases in the Department of Manuscripts of the British Library.[5

The book is in quarto, and now consists of 773 vellum folios (630 in the Old Testament and 143 in the New Testament), bound in four volumes (279 + 238 + 118 + 144). [6] Three volumes contain the Septuagint, Greek version of the Old Testament, with the complete loss of only ten leaves. The fourth volume contains the New Testament with 31 leaves lost.[7] The codex contains a complete copy of the LXX, including the deuterocanonical books 3 and 4 Maccabees, Psalm 151 and the 14 Odes. The "Epistle to Marcellinus" attributed to Saint Athanasius and the Eusebian summary of the Psalms are inserted before the Book of Psalms. It also contains all of the books of the New Testament, in addition to 1 Clement (lacking 57:7-63) and the homily known as 2 Clement (up to 12:5a).

There is an appendix marked in the index, which lists the Psalms of Solomon and probably contained more apocryphal/pseudepigraphical books, but it has been torn off and the pages containing these books have also been lost.

Due to damage and lost folios, various passages are missing or have defects:

• Lacking: 1 Sam 12:17-14:9 (1 leaf); Ps 49:20-79:11 (9 leaves);[8] Matt 1:1-25:6 (26 leaves); John 6:50-8:52 (2 leaves); 2 Cor 4:13-12:6 (3 leaves)[1]

• Damaged: Gen 14:14-17, 15:1-5, 15:16-19, 16:6-9 (lower portion of torn leaf lost)[9] • Defects due to torn leaves: Gen 1:20-25, 1:29-2:3, Lev 8:6,7,16; Sirach 50:21f, 51:5 • Omitted: Luke 22:43-44; {John 7:53-8:11}; Rom 16:24

It is an important witness for the Pericope Adultera (John 7:53-8:11), though the pericope is located on the lost two leaves (John 6:50-8:52), by counting the lines we can prove that it was not in the book - there was not room for it.[10]

The New Testament - fourth volume - books follow in order: Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Catholic epistles, Pauline epistles (Hebrews placed between 2 Thesssalonians and 1 Timothy), Book of Revelation.[11]

92

Description

The manuscript measures 12.6 by 10.4 inches (32 by 26 cm) and most of the folios were originally gathered into quires of 8 leaves each. In modern times it was rebound into quires of 6 leaves each. The material is thin, fine, and very beautiful vellum, often discoloured at the edges, which have been damaged by age and moreso through the ignorance or carelessness of the modern binder, who has not always spared the text, especially at the upper inner margin.[12]

The only decorations in the manuscript are decorative tailpieces at the end of each book (see illustration) and it also shows a tendency to increase the size of the first letter of each sentence.

The text in the codex is written in two columns in uncial script, with between 49 and 51 lines per column[1] and 20 to 25 letters per line.[9] The beginning lines of each book are written in red ink and sections within the book are marked by a larger letter set into the margin. Words are written continuously in a large, round uncial hand with no accents and only some breathings (possibly added by a later editor). The letters are larger than those of the Codex Vaticanus.[13] There is no division of words, but some pause are observed in places in which should be a dot between two words.[13] The Old Testament quotations are marked on the margin by the sign 〉.[14]

The interchange of vowels of somewhat similar sound is very frequent in this manuscript. The letters Ν and Μ are occasionally confused, and the substitution of ΝΓ for ΓΓ. It may be an argument which points to Egypt.[15] In text a lot of itacistic errors, they are often to be met with; for example, αὶ being exchanged for ε, εὶ for ὶ or η for ὶ. Some letters have Coptic shapes (f.e. Α, Μ, Δ, and Π).

Codex Alexandrinus is distinguished among the oldest manuscripts by the use of capital letters to indicate new sections.[16] The letters have elegant shape, but a little less simple than those in Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.[7] These letters, at the end of a line, are often very small, and much of the writing is very pale and faint.[12] At the end of each book the colophon is ornamented by pretty arabesque from prima manu.[7] In the 19th century the codex had been judged to be carelessly written. Besides the other corrections by later hands there are not a few instances in which the original scribe altered what he had first written.[17]

There are found the Ammonian Sections with references to the Eusebian Canons stand in the margin of the text of the Gospels.[6] It contains divisions into larger sections - κεφαλαια, the headings of these sections (τιτλοι) stand at the top of the pages. The places at which those sections commence are indicated throughout the Gospels, and in Luke and John their numbers are placed in the margin of each column. To all the Gospels (except Matthew, because of lacunae) is prefixed a table of divisions.[18]

The various sections into which the Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypse were divided by Euthalian apparatus and others, are not indicated in this manuscript. A cross appears occasionally as a separation in the Book of Acts. A larger letter in the margin throughout the New Testament marks the beginning of a paragraph.[18]

The codex was written by two scribes (according to Kenyon's opinion there were five scribes).[19] The corrected form of text agrees with codices D, N, X, Y, Γ, Θ, Π, Σ, Φ and the great majority of the minuscule manuscripts.[6]

93

Textual Features

The Greek text of the codex is a representative of the Byzantine text-type in the Gospels and the Alexandrian text-type in the rest books of the New Testament, though with some Western readings. Kurt Aland placed it in Category III in the Gospels, and in Category I in rest of the books of the New Testament.[1] In the Gospels, as a representant of the Byzantine text, it has some affinities to the textual family Family Π, though it is not member of this family.[20]

Textual critics have had a challenging task in classifying the Codex, with the exact relationship to other known texts and families still disputed. The gospels are mainly of the Byzantine text-type, but there are a number of Alexandrian features. Soden associated the text of the gospels with Family Π. It is the oldest example of the Byzantine type text.[5]

Alexandrinus follows the Alexandrian readings through the rest of the New Testament, however, the text goes from closely resembling Codex Sinaiticus in the Pauline epistles, to more closely resembling the text of a number of papyri ( 74 for Acts, 47 for the Apocalypse). The text of Acts frequently agrees with the biblical quotations made by St. Athanasius.[21] The gospels are cited as a "consistently cited witness of the third order" in the critical apparatus of the Novum Testamentum Graece, while the rest of the New Testament is of the "first order." In the Book of Revelation and in several books of the Old Testament, it has the best text of all manuscripts.[6]

It was the first manuscript of great importance and antiquity of which any extensive use was made by textual critics.

Provenance

The manuscript's original provenance is unknown. Alexandria is most probable.

In the Acts and Epistles we can not find such chapter divisions, whose authorship is ascribed to Euthalius, Bishop of Sulci, come into vogue before the middle of the fifth century. Codex Alexandrinus contains the Epistle of Athanasius on the Psalms to Marcellinus, it cannot be considered earlier than A.D. 373. The presence Epistle of Clement, which was once read in Churches recalls to a period when the canon of Scripture was in some particulars not quite settled. Codex Alexandrinus was written a generation after codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, but it may still belong to the fourth century. It cannot be later than the beginning of the fifth.[22]

A 13th or 14th century Arabic note on folio 1 reads: "Bound to the Patriarchal Cell in the Fortress of Alexandria. Whoever removes it thence shall be excommunicated and cut off. Written by Athanasius the humble."[23] A 17th century Latin note on a flyleaf (from binding in a royal library) states that the manuscript was given to a patriarchate of Alexandria in 1098 (donum dedit cubicuo Patriarchali anno 814 Martyrum), although this may well be "merely an inaccurate attempt at deciphering the Arabic note by Athanasius (possibly the patriarch Athanasius III, who died about 1308)."[24]

According to an Arabic note on the reverse of the first leaf of the manuscript, the manuscript was written by the hand of Thecla, the martyr, a notable lady of Egypt, a little later than the Council of Nice (A.D. 325).[25][7] Tregelles made another suggestion, the New Testament volume has long been mutilated, and begins now in the twenty-fifth

94

chapter of Matthew, in which chapter the lesson for Thecla's Day stands. "We cannot be sure how the story arose. It may be that the manuscript was written in a monastery dedicated to Thecla."[25] Tregelles thought that Thecla's name might have on this account been written in the margin above, which has been cut off, and that therefore the Egyptians imagined that Thecla had written it.[26]

In Britain

The codex was brought to Constantinople in 1621 by Cyril Lucar (first a patriarch of Alexandria, then later a patriarch of Constantinople) who then presented it to Charles I of England in 1627, through the hands of Thomas Roe (together with minuscule 49), the English ambassador at the court of the Sultan.[27] It became a part of the Royal Library, British Museum and now the British Library. It was saved from the fire at Ashburnam House (the Cotton library) on 23 October 1731, by the librarian, Bentley.

Richard Bentley made collation in 1675. The Epistles of Clement of the codex were published in 1633 by Patrick Young, the Royal Librarian. The first collation was made by Alexander Huish, Prebendary of Wells, for the London Polyglot Bible (1657).[6] The Old Testament was edited by Ernst Grabe in 1707-1720,[28] and New Testament in 1786 by Carl Gottfried Woide, in facsimile from wooden type. Woide made some mistakes, e.g. in 1 Tim 3:16he edits ΘΣ εφανεροθη, and combats in his prolegomena the opinion of Wettstein, who maintained that ΟΣ εφανεροθη was the original reading, and that the stroke, which is some lights can be seen across part of the Ο, arose from part of a letter visible through the vellum. Part of the Ε on the other side of the leaf does inserted the O.[29] Another errors of Woide were made in the Epistle to Ephesians - the substitution of εκληθηθε for εκληθητε (4:1) and πραοθητος for πραοτητος (4:2).[29]

Woide's errors were corrected in 1860 by B. H. Cowper, and E. H. Hansell, with three other manuscripts, in 1864.[9][30] The Old Testament portion was also published in 1816-1828 by Baber.[31] The entire manuscript was issued in photographic facsimile by the British Museum, under the supervision of E. Maunde Thompson in 1879 and 1880.[5]

Recaptation

1. Codex Alex is a mixed Ms. It contains text types of both the Alexandrian type and the Antiochian type.

2. It is a mutilated Ms. The most part of the Gospel of Matthew is missing along with other key parts of the New Testament.

3. No less than five Scribes worked on the text at different times.

4. It may be dated from the last part of the fourth century to the early fifth century and follows the normal omissions of the other Great Uncials.

5. The Main body of the Text is of Alexandrian-Palestinian origin and reflects the same Biblical omissions as the other major Gnostic-Origen-Constantine-Eusebius texts.

6. Codex Alex is NOT OLDER THAN THE REXTUS RECEPTUS THAT LUCIAN THE MARTRY GATHERED AND ESTABLISHED AT ANTIOCH IN THE LATTER THIRD CENTURY.

95

7. IN FACT, NO W-H GREEK MS CAN BE PROVEN OLDER THAN LUCIAN’S TEXTUS RECEPTUS, THE ANTIOCHIAN GREEK TEXT OF THE LATE THIRD CENTURY.

8. Codex Alex is certainly not a better Greek text than Lucian’s Textus Receptus. There are many mutilations and corrections in Alex. It is missing almost the entire Gospel of Matthew.

9. The Gospels are of the Antiochian Text type and the remainder of the Ms. is of the Alexandrian text type.

10. Whether or not the woman taken in Adultery belongs in the Ms is debatable. It is of no major consequence if it belongs in this text or not since the Ms is of no any real authority when evaluated by the Antiochian Text Type. However, we should remember that since the Gospels follow the Antiochian Textual family, then the account belongs in the Text.

11.The other “disputed” texts are not found in this Ms. This would be true also of the other Gnostic-Egyptian text types that evolved into the Constantine-Eusebius Bibles of Westcott and Hort.

12. In conclusion to Codex Alex, it is fair and safe to say that our Textus Receptus is both an older and a better Ms than Alex. The Christology of the TR is superior to Alex. We much prefer to remain a firm user and supporter of the Lucian Koine Greek Text.

96

Chapter 8

(My Introduction

This Ms is the last of the basic four Giant Uncials forming the W-H textual sand-like-foundation. Its date is from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. It joins with Codex Sin in receiving its final form in the twelfth century. Like Codex Sin this Ms has been subjected to numerous changes and revisions. It is a palimpsest. I am only considering it to show the sand-like foundation of the W-H structure.

Since this is a palimpset, we should ask one question:

1) Why did the scribe destroy the original edition of the Scriptures?

Let us remember that only the Gospels are in the Antiochian tradition. The remaining books are in the Alexandrian-Palestine tradition. REP.)

Codex Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Ephraemi_Rescriptus

Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Paris, National Library Greek 9; Gregory-Aland no. C or 04, von Soden δ 3) is an early 5th century Greek manuscript of the Bible,[1] the last in the group of the four great uncial manuscripts of the Greek Bible (see Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus). It receives its name, as a codex in which the treatises of Ephraem the Syrian, in Greek translations, were written over ("rescriptus") a former text that had been washed off its vellum pages, thus forming a palimpsest.[1] The later text was produced in the 12th century. The effacement of the original text was incomplete, fortunately, for beneath the text of Ephraem are the remains of what was once a complete Bible, containing both the Old Testament and the New. It forms one of the codices for textual criticism on which the Higher criticism is based.

97

After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Codex was brought to Florence by an émigré scholar. Catherine de' Medici brought it to France as part of her dowry, and from the Bourbon royal library it came to rest in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. In 1834-1835 was used Potassium ferricyanide to bring out faded or eradicated ink.

The first complete collation of the New Testament was made by Johann Jakob Wettstein (1716). Constantin von Tischendorf made his reputation an international one when he published the Greek New Testament text in 1843 and the Old Testament in 1845. The torn condition of many folios, the ghostly traces of the text overlaid by the later one made the decipherment an extremely difficult task. Even with modern aids like ultra-violet photography, not all the text is securely legible.

The codex (illustration, above right) measures 12 1/4 in/31.4-32.5 cm by 9 in/25.6-26.4 cm, with a single column to a page. Originally the whole Bible seems to have been contained in it.

Manuscript C (04)

http://www.skypoint.com/members/waltzmn/ManuscriptsUncials.html

Location/Catalog Number

Paris, National Library Greek 9.

Contents

C originally contained the entire Old and New Testaments, but was erased in the twelfth century and overwritten with Syriac works of Ephraem. The first to more or less completely read the manuscript was Tischendorf, but it is likely that it will never be fully deciphered (for example, the first lines of every book were written in red or some other color of ink, and have completely vanished). In addition, very many leaves were lost when the book was rewritten; while it is barely possible that some may yet be rediscovered, there is no serious hope of recovering the whole book.

As it now stands, C lacks the following New Testament verses in their entirety:

• Matt. 1:1-2, 5:15-7:5, 17:26-18:28, 22:21-23:17, 24:10-45, 25:30-26:22, 27:11-46, 28:15-end

• Mark 1:1-17, 6:32-8:5, 12:30-13:19 • Luke 1:1-2, 2:5-42, 3:21-4:5, 6:4-36, 7:17-8:28, 12:4-19:42, 20:28-21:20, 22:19-23:25,

24:7-45 • John 1:1-3, 1:41-3:33, 5:17-6:38, 7:3-8:34 (does not have space for 7:53-8:11), 9:11-

11:7, 11:47-13:8, 14:8-16:21, 18:36-20:25 • Acts 1:1-2, 4:3-5:34, 6:8, 10:43-13:1, 16:37-20:10, 21:31-22:20, 23:18-24:15, 26:19-

27:16, 28:5-end • Romans 1:1-2, 2:5-3:21, 9:6-10:15, 11:31-13:10 • 1 Corinthians 1:1-2, 7:18-9:16, 13:8-15:40 • 2 Corinthians 1:1-2, 10:8-end

98

• Galatians 1:1-20 • Ephesians 1:1-2:18, 4:17-end • Philippians 1:1-22, 3:5-end • Colossians 1:1-2 • 1 Thessalonians 1:1, 2:9-end • 2 Thessalonians (entire book) • 1 Timothy 1:1-3:9, 5:20-end • 2 Timothy 1:1-2 • Titus 1:1-2 • Philemon 1-2 • Hebrews 1:1-2:4, 7:26-9:15, 10:24-12:15 • James 1:1-2, 4:2-end • 1 Peter 1:1-2, 4:5-end • 2 Peter 1:1 • 1 John 1:1-2, 4:3-end • 2 John (entire book) • 3 John 1-2 • Jude 1-2 • Revelation 1:1-2, 3:20-5:14, 7:14-17, 8:5-9:16, 10:10-11:3, 16:13-18:2, 19:5-end

(and, of course, C may be illegible even on the pages which survive). We might note that we are fortunate to have even this much of the New Testament; we have significantly more than half of the NT, but much less than half of the Old Testament.

Date/Scribe

The original writing of C is dated paleographically to the fifth century, and is quite fine and clear (fortunately, given what has happened to the manuscript since). Before being erased, it was worked over by two significant correctors, C2 (Cb) and C3 (Cc). (The corrector C1 was the original corrector, but made very few changes. C1 is not once cited in NA27.) Corrector C2 is though to have worked in the sixth century or thereabouts; C3 performed his task around the ninth century. (For more information about the correctors of C, see the article on Correctors.)

It was probably in the twelfth century that the manuscript was erased and overwritten; the upper writing is a Greek translation of 38 Syriac sermons by Ephraem.

Description and Text-type

It is usually stated that C is a mixed manuscript, or an Alexandrian manuscript with much Byzantine mixture. The Alands, for instance, list it as Category II; given their classification scheme, that amounts to a statement that it is Alexandrian with Byzantine influence. Von Soden lists it among the H (Alexandrian) witnesses, but not as a leading witness of the type.

The actual situation is much more complex than that, as even the Alands' own figures reveal (they show a manuscript with a far higher percentage of Byzantine

99

readings in the gospels than elsewhere). The above description is broadly accurate in the Gospels; it is not true at all elsewhere.

In the Gospels, the Alands' figures show a manuscript which is slightly more Byzantine than not, while Wisse lists C as mixed in his three chapters of Luke. But these are overall assessments; a detailed examination shows C to waver significantly in its adherence to the Alexandrian and Byzantine texts. While at no point entirely pure, it will in some sections be primarily Alexandrian, in others mostly Byzantine.

Gerben Kollenstaart brings to my attention the work of Mark R. Dunn in An Examination of the Textual Character of Codex Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus (C, 04) in the Four Gospels (unpublished Dissertation, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary 1990). Neither of us has seen this document, but we find the summary, "C is a weak Byzantine witness in Matthew, a weak Alexandrian in Mark, and a strong Alexandrian in John. In Luke C's textual relationships are unclear" (Summarized in Brooks, The New Testament Text of Gregory of Nyssa, p. 60, footnote 1). I dislike the terminology used, as it looks much too formulaic and appears to assume that C's textual affinities change precisely at the boundaries between books. (Given C's fragmentary state, this is even more unprovable than usual.) But the general conclusion seems fair enough: Matthew is the most Byzantine, John the least. In all cases, however, one suspects Byzantine and Alexandrian mixture -- probably of Byzantine readings atop an Alexandrian base. This would explain the larger number of Byzantine readings in Matthew: As is often the case, the corrector was most diligent at the beginning.

Outside the Gospels, C seems to show the same sort of shift shown by its near-contemporary, A -- though, because C possessed Alexandrian elements in the gospels, the shift is less noticeable. But it is not unfair to say that C is mixed in the Gospels and almost purely non-Byzantine elsewhere.

In short works such as Acts and the Catholic Epistles, the limited amount of text available makes precise determinations difficult. In the Acts, we can at least state definitively that C is less Byzantine than it is in the Gospels, but any conclusion beyond that is somewhat tentative. The usual statement is that C is Alexandrian, and I know of no counter-evidence. Nonetheless, given the situation in the Catholic Epistles, I believe this statement must be taken with caution.

The situation in the Catholic Epistles is purely and simply confused. The published evaluations do not agree. W. L. Richards, in his dissertation on the Johannine Epistles using the Claremont Profile Method, does a fine job of muddling the issue. He lists C as a member of the A2 text, which appears to be the mainstream Alexandrian text (it also contains , A, and B). But something funny happens when one examines C's affinities. C has a 74% agreement with A, and a 77% agreement with B, but also a 73% agreement with 1739, and a 72% agreement with 1243. This is hardly a large enough difference to classify C with the Alexandrians as against the members of Family 1739. And, indeed, Amphoux and Outtier link C with Family 1739, considering their common material possible "Cæsarean."

My personal results seem to split the difference. If one assumes C is Alexandrian, it can be made to look Alexandrian. But if one starts with no such assumptions, then it appears that C does incline toward Family 1739. It is not a pure member of the family, in the sense that

100

(say) 323 is; 323, after all, may be suspected of being descended (with mixture) from 1739 itself. But C must be suspected of belonging to the type from which the later Family 1739 descended. (Presumably the surviving witnesses of Family 1739 are descended from a common ancestor more recent than C, i.e. Family 1739 is a sub-text-type of the broader C/1241/1739 type.) It is possible (perhaps even likely) that C has some Alexandrian mixture, but proving this (given the very limited amount of text available) will require a very detailed examination of C.

In Paul, the situation is simpler: C is a very good witness, of the Alexandrian type as found in A 33 81 1175 etc. (This as opposed to the type(s) found in P46 or B or 1739). So far as I know, this has never been disputed.

In the Apocalypse, C is linked with A in what is usually called the Alexandrian text. No matter what it is called, this type (which also includes the Vulgate and most of the better minuscules) is considered the best type. Note that this is not the sort of text found in P47

and .

Other Symbols Used for this Manuscript

von Soden: δ3

Bibliography

Note: As with all the major uncials, no attempt is made to compile a complete bibliography.

Collations:

Various editors extracted occasional readings from the manuscript, but Tischendorf was the first to read C completely. Tischendorf is often reported to have used chemicals, but in fact it is believed that they were applied before his time -- and they have hastened the decay of the manuscript. Tischendorf, working by eye alone, naturally did a less than perfect job. Robert W. Lyon, in 1958-1959, published a series of corrections in New Testament Studies (v). But this, too, is reported to be imperfect. The best current source is the information published in the Das Neue Testament auf Papyrus series. But there is no single source which fully describes C.

Sample Plates:

Sir Frederick Kenyon & A. W. Adams, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts

Editions which cite:

Cited in all editions since Tischendorf

Other Works:

Mark R. Dunn, An Examination of the Textual Character of Codex Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus (C, 04) in the Four Gospels (unpublished Dissertation, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary 1990)

My Recaptation

101

Codex Ephraemi is the final Ms in the W-H fleet of trusted older and better Manuscripts. It deserves even less respect and consideration that Codex Sin or Alex. The main points about this Ms are the following:

1. It is Syrian. Please read again our chapter on the old Syrian. It has been made to conform to the Constantine-Eusebius Bibles and offers no any real value to the study of the historic and older Syrian texts. The best that can said for it is that it conforms to the Byzantine or Antiochian Texts in the Gospels.

2. This evaluation should be remembered: Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Paris, National Library Greek 9; Gregory-Aland no. C or 04, von Soden δ 3) is an early 5th century Greek manuscript of the Bible,[1] the last in the group of the four great uncial manuscripts of the Greek Bible (see Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Vaticanus). It receives its name, as a codex in which the treatises of Ephraem the Syrian, in Greek translations, were written over ("rescriptus") a former text that had been washed off its vellum pages, thus forming a palimpsest.[1]

3. It can be accurately dated to the following: The later text was produced in the 12th century. The effacement of the original text was incomplete, fortunately, for beneath the text of Ephraem are the remains of what was once a complete Bible, containing both the Old Testament and the New.

4. It may be well to remember that Codex Sin also dates back to the 12th century in its present form. So, two of the so called “older and better Texts” can be traced back no further than the 12th century in their present forms. Many of the older Greek-Latin Bilinguals are much older, some going back to the fourth century with their Latin dating back to about 125 AD.

Finish

102