Matthew 6:1-4 - Revision of the Textus Receptus

The gospel according to Matthew

Chapter 6

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1. Προσέχετε [1] τὴν ἐλεημοσύνην ὑμῶν μὴ ποιεῖν ἔμπροσθεν τῶν ἀνθρώπων πρὸς τὸ θεαθῆναι αὐτοῖς, εἰ δὲ μήγε μισθὸν οὐκ ἔχετε παρὰ τῷ πατρὶ ὑμῶν τῷ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς. “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds[2] before men, to be seen by them, otherwise you have no reward with your Father in heaven.

2. Ὅταν οὖν ποιῇς ἐλεημοσύνην, μὴ σαλπίσῃς ἔμπροσθέν σου, ὥσπερ οἱ ὑποκριταὶ ποιοῦσιν ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς καὶ ἐν ταῖς ῥύμαις, ὅπως δοξασθῶσιν ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων. Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἀπέχουσιν τὸν μισθὸν αὐτῶν. Therefore, when you do charitable deeds, do not sound a trumpet before yourself, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.

3. Σοῦ δὲ ποιοῦντος ἐλεημοσύνην μὴ γνώτω ἡ ἀριστερά σου τί ποιεῖ ἡ δεξιά σου, But when you do charitable deeds, do not let your left hand know what your right hand does,

4. ὅπως ᾖ σου ἡ ἐλεημοσύνη ἐν τῷ κρυπτῷ· καὶ ὁ πατήρ σου ὁ βλέπων ἐν τῷ κρυπτῷ αὑτὸς ἀποδώσει σοι ἐν τῷ φανερῷ. so that your charitable deeds may be in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will himself[3] reward you openly[4].

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[1] NA-Text adds “δε” (and) in brackets.           

[2] Or: “practice your righteousness” (NA-Text and Vg-St, Latin equivalent: “iustitiam vestram”) instead of “do your charitable deeds”: א* B D 0250 ƒ¹ 372 892 1424* 2737 syr^s syr^pal Origen^mss Hilary Jerome Augustine Fulgentius of Ruspe Gregory the Great Bede | TR: K L W Z Δ Θ ƒ¹³ 22 28 33 565 579 700 1241 1424 Byz it^f it^k syr^p syr^h cop^mae arm goth Clement Origen^mss Didymus the Blind Basil Chrysostom Theophylact; “gift”: cop^bo syr^c || Internal evidence can go both ways, suggesting that “righteousness” is a general heading for what comes next or that the same word “charitable deeds” repeated in verses 2, 3 and 4 is following a pattern of repetition that can be seen again with regards to prayer (“when you pray”, verses 5-7) and fasting (“when you fast”, verses 16-17). “gift” found in the Bohairic Coptic and the Curetonian Syriac is closer to the Byzantine “almsgiving” than the “righteousness” found in the Alexandrian text. Both readings are viable. Scrivener suspected that “ἐλεημοσύνην” was a marginal gloss that crept into the text, but the widespread nature of this reading makes it less probable, unless the apostle himself added this marginal note or his amanuensis. As a side note, the Greek text in the Complutensian Polyglot, which is Byzantine, read “charitable deeds”, whereas the text in the parallel column in Latin read “righteousness”.

[3] NA-Text, P-Text and Vg-St omit “himself” before “reward you”: א B K L U Z Θ 047 0250 ƒ¹³ 22 33 279 892 1192 1424 2786 al vg syr^s syr^c cop Diatessaron Origen Chrysostom Augustine Jerome | TR: D E M S W X^vid Δ Π Σ Φ ƒ¹ 28 565 579 700 1223 1241 Byz it^h it^q syr^p syr^h Theophylact || The pronoun “αυτος” is subject to scribal harmonization, given that the same phrase is repeated in verses 6 and 18 without it (εν τω κρυπτω αποδωσει σοι εν τω φανερω). The omission is not safe.

[4] NA-Text and Vg-St omit “openly”: א B D Z ƒ¹ ƒ¹³ 33 205 983 1192 1292 1689 2786 al it^aur it^d it^ff1 it^k vg syr^c cop^sa cop^mae cop^bo cop^fay Diatessaron^syr Origen Cyprian Chromatius Jerome Augustine mss^{according to Augustine} | TR: E K L W Δ Θ Π Σ 0250 13 28 157 180 565 579 597 700 828 892 1006 1009 1010 1071 1079 1195 1216 1230 1241 1242 1243 1342 1365 1424 1505 1546 1646 2148 2174 Byz it^a it^b it^c it^f it^g1 it^h it^l it^q syr^s syr^p syr^h syr^pal goth arm eth geo slav Diatessaron^arm Basil (Apostolic Constitutions) Chrysostom Speculum Ps-Chrysostom Latin mss^{according to Augustine} || Augustine commenting on this passage says: “Many Latin copies have it thus, ​"​And your Father who sees in secret shall reward you openly​"​ but because we have not found the word ​"openly​"​ in the Greek copies, which are earlier, we have not thought that anything was to be said about it”. Augustine appears to have had access to a limited amount of Alexandrian and Western codices that omitted “openly” resembling א, B and D for he concluded that “openly” was a Latin expansion to the text. In the 390’s though we find Chrysostom preaching through the gospel of Matthew with a Greek manuscript that contained “openly”, a reading that was found in Basil’s Greek manuscript earlier in the 300’s. Jerome and Cyprian’s manuscript didn’t include “openly”, but this is possibly a removal to harmonize verses 4 and 6 to the well supported omission in verse 18.

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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. M-Text^RP - Majority Text compiled by Maurice Robinson & William Pierpont;

6. M-Text^HF - Majority Text compiled by Zane Hodges & Arthur Farstad; 

7. Vg-St: Vulgate of Stuttgart;  

8. WPF³⁵: Wilbur Pickering-family 35;

9. P-Text: Patriarchal Text, also known as Patriarchal Greek New Testament, published by the ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.

10. 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!