Matthew 6:25-34 - Revision of the Textus Receptus

The gospel according to Matthew

Chapter 6

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25. Διὰ τοῦτο λέγω ὑμῖν, μὴ μεριμνᾶτε τῇ ψυχῇ ὑμῶν, τί φάγητε καὶ[1] τί πίητε, μηδὲ τῷ σώματι ὑμῶν τί ἐνδύσησθε. Οὐχὶ ἡ ψυχὴ πλεῖόν ἐστι τῆς τροφῆς καὶ τὸ σῶμα τοῦ ἐνδύματος; For this reason, I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, what you will eat, and what you will drink[2], nor for your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26. ἐμβλέψατε εἰς τὰ πετεινὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ ὅτι οὐ σπείρουσιν οὐδὲ θερίζουσιν οὐδὲ συνάγουσιν εἰς ἀποθήκας. Καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν ὁ οὐράνιος τρέφει αὐτά. Οὐχ ὑμεῖς μᾶλλον διαφέρετε αὐτῶν; Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27. Τίς δὲ ἐξ ὑμῶν μεριμνῶν δύναται προσθεῖναι ἐπὶ τὴν ἡλικίαν αὐτοῦ πῆχυν ἕνα; And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his stature? 28. Καὶ περὶ ἐνδύματος τί μεριμνᾶτε; καταμάθετε τὰ κρίνα τοῦ ἀγροῦ, πῶς αὐξάνει. Οὐ κοπιᾷ οὐδὲ νήθει[3] And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil, nor spin, 29. λέγω δὲ ὑμῖν ὅτι οὐδὲ Σολομὼν ἐν πάσῃ τῇ δόξῃ αὐτοῦ περιεβάλετο ὡς ἓν τούτων. yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed like one of these. 30. Εἰ δὲ τὸν χόρτον τοῦ ἀγροῦ, σήμερον ὄντα, καὶ αὔριον εἰς κλίβανον βαλλόμενον, ὁ θεὸς οὕτως ἀμφιέννυσιν, οὐ πολλῷ μᾶλλον ὑμᾶς, ὀλιγόπιστοι; But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31. Μὴ οὖν μεριμνήσητε, λέγοντες, Τί φάγωμεν; ἤ Τί πίωμεν; ἤ Τί περιβαλώμεθα; “Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’, or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32. Πάντα γὰρ ταῦτα τὰ ἔθνη ἐπιζητεῖ[4]. Οἶδεν γὰρ ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν ὁ οὐράνιος ὅτι χρῄζετε τούτων ἁπάντων. For the Gentiles seek after all these things. For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. 33. Ζητεῖτε δὲ πρῶτον τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ[5] καὶ τὴν δικαιοσύνην αὐτοῦ, καὶ ταῦτα πάντα προστεθήσεται ὑμῖν. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. 34. Μὴ οὖν μεριμνήσητε εἰς τὴν αὔριον, ἡ γὰρ αὔριον μεριμνήσει ἑαυτῆς. Ἀρκετὸν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἡ κακία αὐτῆς. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself[6]. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.     [1] NA-Text reads “η”, which is also translated as “or”. [2] NA-Text brackets “η τι πιητε” (what you will drink). Vg-St omits it: א ƒ1 22* 372 892 1592 ita itb itff1 itk itl syrc syrpal copsa(mss) armmss ethro ethpp Diatessaronsyr Clement Methodius Origen Adamantius Hilary Athanasius Basil Epiphanius Chrysostom Jerome Augustine2/3 Cyril. TR: B E G K (L) N W Δ Φ Θ Π Σ 0233 f13 22mg 28 33 157 180 205 565 579 597 700 1006 1009 1010 1071 1079 1195 1216 1230 1241 1242 1243 1253 1292 1342 1365 1424 1505 1546 1646 2148 2174 Byz itaur itc itf itg1 ith itm itq copsa(mss) copmae copbo armmss ethmss? geo1 geoB slav syrp syrh goth ethmss? geoA Basil1/2 Augustine1/3 Origen (Eusebius) Athanasius Basil1/2 Evagrius Nilus Marcus Eremita Speculum Maximus-Confessor (mssaccording to Jerome) Theophylact || Justin Martyr is listed as a witness for the omission, but this should be corrected, because Justin Martyr is putting together loosely several statements from the sermon on the mount. For example, he skipped “what you shall drink” in verse 31 that the NA-Text or the Vg-St do not question as scripture. The Diatessaron is listed as a witness for the omission, but the Arabic version includes it (section 10:2). Origen is also incorrectly cited as a witness for the omission. He actually included the clause in his work against Celsus (Book 7, ch. 24). Clement of Alexandria also is not a witness for the non-inclusion for he simply quoted a few words of Matthew 6:25 and then as the commentary goes on, he says “and we were made, not that we might eat or drink” (Instructor, bok 2, chapter 1). Methodius is cited as a witness for the omission, but I did not find any citation of Matt. 6:25 in his works. Cyril of Alexandria is cited as a witness for the omission, but this is not correct because in his sermon 62 on the gospel of Luke he quotes the verse as it appears in Matthew (“Be you not anxious for yourselves as to what you must eat, and drink: nor for your body, what clothing you must wear: for your Father knoweth that you have need of all those things”). Athanasius and Basil should not be considered as witnesses for any side for they could be quoting from Luke 12:22 which lacks “what you shall drink”. Chrysostom is possibly a witness for the omission, assuming he borrowed the words from Matthew for his homily 21. Jerome omits it, but he acknowledges that “some copies add: “what you will drink” (commentary on the gospel of Matthew, 6:25). Augustine is a witness for the inclusion of the clause (Sermon on the mount, 2:16:53) and so is Theophylact. Hilary, Epiphanius and Maximus the confessor should be double checked. Rather than a pure "non-western interpolation" as Hort called it, this omission here may be due to harmonization to Luke 12:22 that lacks “what you shall drink” or to the end of the verse that asks the question about food and clothing but leaves out the question about drinking or even due to a parabletic error (φαγητε η τι πιητε, thus missing “or what you will drink”). [3] NA-Text and Vg-St read “αυξανουσιν ου κοπιωσιν ουδε νηθουσιν” (third-person plural instead of third-person singular, Latin equivalent: “crescerunt non laborant nec nent): א1 B Θ ƒ1 33 205 1071 ita itaur itb itc itf itff1 itg1 ith (itk) itl syrc syrp syrh syrpal copsa copbo eth geo1 geoA slav Hilary Athanasius Chrysostomcomm Augustine Speculum | TR: E G K L N W Δ Π Σ 0233 ƒ13 28 157 180 565 579 597 700 892 1006 1010 1079 1195 1216 1230 1241 1242 1243 1253 1292 1342 1365 1424 1505 1546 2148 2174 Byz goth (arm) (Philo-Carpasia) Basil Chrysostomlem Nilus || This appears to be the case of scribal adjustment in a few Greek copies including codices א, B and Θ. A scribe may have noticed that “lilies” was in the plural and then adjusted the verbs “toil” and “spin” to its plural form. That is how the translators interpreted the sentence in the versions, including the vulgate. The Arabic version of the Diatessaron shows that a scribe was not comfortable with this apparent discrepancy and adjusted lily to its singular form. Also, Chrysostom’s homily 23 reveals that the opening text of the homily reads “lilies” and the verbs in the singular, but he used the verb in the plural in the commentary, going from the harder reading in the scripture to the most natural reading for a Greek-speaking person in the commentary. Harmonization to the parallel passage in Luke 12:27 can explain the Byzantine reading, but there is nothing hard in a reading using naturally plural and plural that would lead a scribe to double-check the parallel passage in Luke. It is safer than to maintain the sentence in the singular form. [4] NA-Text and Vg-St read “επιζητουσιν” (third-person plural instead of third-person singular, Latin equivalent: “gentes inquirunt”). Probably the same kind of internal harmonization discussed in the footnote of verse 28. But this time the possibility for harmonization from Luke to Matthew here is even more remote in the Byzantine copies for Luke used the phrase “the nations of the world seek”, whose “of the world” was not brought into the gospel of Matthew, which is what we would expect if a copyist was harmonizing those 2 passages. The verb in Luke is also in the singular form. [5] NA-Text brackets “του θεου” (of God). [6] NA-Text and Vg-St omit “things” and render “will worry about itself”: א B L W 700 892 Byzmss Cyprian Hilary Augustine Jerome Bede | TR:  K N Δ ƒ1 ƒ13 28 33 syrh Theophylact || Chrysostom reads: “αυριον μεριμνησει περι εαυτης”, which does not confirm the Byzantine reading. “τα” appears to be a textual emendation in the Byzantine text. It seems that the fathers felt that something was missing before “εαυτης” in this sentence, with Chrysostom adding “περι”, codex Θ adding “το” and codex N adding “τα”. Therefore, “τα” has been dropped from the text.

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Notes:

1. Text in red letters are places where the original reading in the Textus Receptus has been revised and corrected;

2. The English translation used as a reference is the WEB brought to conformity as literal as possible to the Textus Receptus. The end product though is not the WEB or a revised WEB and it should not be called WEB. The content of this post is freely available to everyone and it is not supposed to be copyrighted;

3. TR: Textus Receptus. This text is not copyrighted;

4. NA-Text: Nestle-Aland text commonly known as critical text;

5. M-Text: Majority Text;

6. VgSt: Vulgate of Stuttgart;  

7. WPF³⁵: Wilbur Pickering-family 35;

8. PT: Patriarchal Text, also known as Patriarchal Greek New Testament, published by the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

9. The creator of the variant apparatus available in the VarApp kindly gave me permission to freely use the information contained in the material he put together.

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To God all the glory for the preservation of the scriptures! He reigns!