The gospel according to Matthew
Chapter 18
|
7. Οὐαὶ τῷ κόσμῳ ἀπὸ τῶν σκανδάλων. Ἀνάγκη γὰρ ἐστιν[1] εἐλθεῖν τὰ σκάνδαλα,
πλὴν οὐαὶ τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ἐκείνῳ διʼ οὗ τὸ σκάνδαλον ἔρχεται. “Woe to the world because of occasions of stumbling!
For it is necessary that stumbling blocks come, but woe to that[2] man through whom the occasion
of stumbling comes! |
|
8. Εἰ δὲ ἡ χείρ σου ἢ ὁ πούς σου σκανδαλίζει
σε, ἔκκοψον αὐτὸν[3] καὶ βάλε ἀπὸ σοῦ. Καλόν
σοί ἐστιν εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν ζωὴν χωλὸν ἢ κυλλόν, ἢ δύο χεῖρας ἢ δύο πόδας
ἔχοντα βληθῆναι εἰς τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον. If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut
it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter life maimed or
crippled, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into the
eternal fire. |
|
9. Καὶ εἰ ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου σκανδαλίζει σε, ἔξελε
αὐτὸν καὶ βάλε ἀπὸ σοῦ. Καλόν σοί ἐστιν μονόφθαλμον εἰς τὴν ζωὴν εἰσελθεῖν, ἢ
δύο ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχοντα βληθῆναι εἰς τὴν γέενναν τοῦ πυρός. And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out
and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than
having two eyes to be cast into the hell of fire. |
|
10. Ὁρᾶτε μὴ καταφρονήσητε ἑνὸς τῶν μικρῶν
τούτων, λέγω γὰρ ὑμῖν ὅτι οἱ ἄγγελοι αὐτῶν ἐν οὐρανοῖς διὰ παντὸς βλέπουσι[4] τὸ πρόσωπον τοῦ πατρός μου
τοῦ ἐν οὐρανοῖς. See that you do not despise one of these little
ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my
Father who is in heaven. |
|
11. Ἦλθεν γὰρ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου σῶσαι τὸ
ἀπολωλός. For the Son of Man came to save what was lost. [5] |
|
12. Τί ὑμῖν δοκεῖ; ἐὰν γένηταί τινι ἀνθρώπῳ
ἑκατὸν πρόβατα καὶ πλανηθῇ ἓν ἐξ αὐτῶν, οὐχὶ ἀφεὶς[6] τὰ ἐνενήκοντα ἐννέα[7] ἐπὶ τὰ ὄρη [8] πορευθεὶς ζητεῖ τὸ
πλανώμενον; “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep,
and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the
mountains and go seek the one that has gone astray? |
|
13. Καὶ ἐὰν γένηται εὑρεῖν αὐτό, ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν
ὅτι χαίρει ἐπʼ αὐτῷ μᾶλλον ἢ ἐπὶ τοῖς ἐνενήκοντα ἐννέα τοῖς μὴ πεπλανημένοις. And if he finds it, truly I say to you, he rejoices
over it more than over the ninety-nine that have not gone astray. |
|
14. Οὕτως οὐκ ἔστιν θέλημα ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ πατρὸς
ὑμῶν τοῦ ἐν οὐρανοῖς ἵνα ἀπόληται εἷς[9] τῶν μικρῶν τούτων. Likewise,
it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little
ones should perish. |
[1] NA-Text omits “εστιν”.
[2] NA-Text and Vg-St omit “that” and render “to the man”. Jerome did not
have in his manuscript “that”, but several old Latin codices preserved it,
including ita, itb, itc, ite, itf,
itff1, itff2, itl, itn and itq,
plus Cyprian, Augustine and Hilary. The Clementine vulgate is better reflecting
the collective witness of the Latin church by including the pronoun in the
Latin text. In Egypt, Clement of Alexandria and Cyril of Alexandria supported
the inclusion of the demonstrative pronoun. Origen should not be cited as a
witness because he never cited the third part of the verse in his book 13 on
the gospel of Matthew. The support for the NA-Text is good. It includes codices
א, D, F, L, group of manuscripts ƒ1, minuscules 22 and 892, the
Syriac versions and the Coptic versions. But the support for the Byzantine
reading is superior, including codices B, K, X, W, Δ, Θ, Π, family of
manuscripts ƒ13, minuscules 28, 33, 565, 700, 1009, 1010, 1071,
1079, 1195, 1216, 1230, 1241, 1242, 1253, 1344, 1365, 1546, 1646, 2148, the Byzantine
manuscripts, the Armenian, the Ethiopic and the Georgian version, the Diatessaron,
Basil, Chrysostom, John of Damascus and Theophylact. The pronoun was possibly
lost due to a copyist error caused by homoeoteleuton (ανθρωπω εκεινω, thus missing “that”).
[3] NA-Text and Vg-St read “αυτον” (Latin equivalent: “abscide eum”), singular instead of plural, thus
rendering “cut it off”: א B D L
U Θ ƒ1 ƒ13 892 1010 1241* 1424 Diatessaron Jerome Theophylact
| TR: E F G H K M N S W X Y Γ Δ Π Ω 33 118
565 700 Byz syrh copbo Chrysostom || The external support
for the NA-Text is robust and widespread among all text-types. It is almost
certain that a scribe adjusted the pronoun to refer to both hand and foot,
thinking that the singular masculine referring to foot was an error. Therefore,
the pronoun has been adjusted.
[4] NA-Text and P-Text read “βλεπουσι”: א B Theophylact | TR: D Θ || The abbreviated form of this verbal tense
has been adopted in the Greek text.
[5] NA-Text omits this verse. This omission has not been preserved in any
Latin or Byzantine compilation. The Clementine vulgate, the vulgate of
Stuttgart, the patriarchal text, the majority text and Wilber Pickering family
35 all include this verse. Only 1.5% of the extant Greek manuscripts omit this
verse. It is also significant that several scribes realized that the verse was
missing in their manuscripts and added the verse either in the text or in the
margin including codices L, Θ, minuscules 1, 892, 899 and 929. The omission of
the verse in majuscules like א and B
and family of manuscripts ƒ1 and ƒ13 crept into the
Coptic versions. Origen should not be cited as a witness for the omission with
a “videtur” as if the omission in his manuscript were almost certain. And this
is because in his commentary on the gospel of Matthew he jumps from verse 10 to
verse 14 and then goes on from verse 15 (Commentary on the gospel of Matthew,
Book 13, Ch. 26-29). Jerome is cited in the apparatus as a witness for the
omission, but this is not correct, because he includes verse 11 right after the
10th (Latin: Dico enim vobis, quia angeli eorum in coelis semper vident faciem
Patris mei qui in coelis est. Venit enim Filius hominis
salvare quod perierat). Hilary is also cited as a witness for the
omission but this is also incorrect because on his commentary on Matthew he adds
verse 11 right after the 10th verse (Latin: “Pusillorum enim angeli
quotidie Deum videat: quia filius hominis venit salvare
quae perdita sunt. Ergo et filius hominis salvat, et Deum angeli vident,
et angeli pusillorum sunt.”, commentary on the gospel of Matthew, Ch. 18). External
evidence for the inclusion of the verse is overwhelming. Among the majuscules,
the verse is included in codices D, E, F, G, H, K, Lc(mg), M, N, S, W,
X, Y, Δ, Θc, Ω, Π, Σ, 078vid, minuscules 1c,
22, 28, 180, 205, 565, 597, 700, 1006, 1071, 1079, 1230, 1241, 1242, 1253,
1292, 1344, 1365, 1424, 1546, 1646, 2148, 2174, 11 old Latin codices (ita,
itaur, itb, itd, itf, itff2,
itg1, itl, itn, itq and itr1), the
Curetonian Syriac, the Peshitta, the Armenian and the Georgian version (except
GeoA). Patristic witnesses are unmistakenly for the inclusion of the
verse, including the Diatessaron, Hilary, Chrysostom, Augustine, Jerome, Bede
and Theophylact. The idea that this verse was added in Matthew from Luke 19:10 is
highly unlikely. First because Luke reads that the Son of Man came “to seek and to save the lost” whereas Matthew reads
simply that the Son of Man came to “save the lost”. And second because those
two verses are used in completely different contexts. The question that one has
to ask is why everybody had the same idea in all those different locations,
diverse versions, the collective witness of the fathers and a diversity of
Greek manuscripts of different types, to add a verse from a different context
and with exactly the same modification, if there was not one and the same original
source from which they all sprang up? Lastly, the
verse may have been lost in some copies due to different emphasis in early
lectionaries. Origen jumps from verse 10 to 14 in his commentary, which could
have been a sort of a lesson in the early church that emphasized the little
ones and their angels, wrapping up in verse 14 that is where Chrysostom's
homily 59 ended. Verses 12 and 13 may have been part of another lesson with an
emphasis on the return of the lost sheep together with the parables in Luke 15
(Diatessaron, section 26). Verses 10-11 and 12-13 are in different sections in
the Diatessaron (though Tatian replaced Matt. 18:12 with the similar verse in
Luke 15:4). This might have been a possible source of confusion for some
scribes. Be that as it may, the confusion is easily undone when one allows the
agreement of 98-99% of the Greek manuscripts in multiple locales and times, the
church fathers collectively and the scriptures preserved in the Latin church to
have a say as to the inclusion of the verse in the text.
[6] NA-Text reads “αφησει” (future instead of aorist). Codex Sinaiticus agree with the Byzantine
verbal tense.
[7] NA-Text, WPF35, P-text and M-text read “ενενηκοντα εννεα”. Text
adjusted..
[8] NA-Text and Vg-St add “και” (Latin equivalent: “et”). The “and” was probably a later accretion to
the text once a scribe felt that something was missing before the participle
“go”, which is found in codices B, D, L and Θ. Codices א, E, F, G, K, W, Π, the Byzantine manuscripts,
Chrysostom and Theophylact have preserved the harder reading by not adding the
conjunction to the text.
[9] NA-Text reads “εν” (neutral instead of masculine): א B D L N 0281 33 565 (579) 892 | TR: K W L Δ Θ 078 ƒ1
ƒ13 700 1241 1424 Byz Chrysostom Theophylact || Both are viable
because the rest of the sentence can be interpreted either in the masculine or
the neutral.
----
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-TextRP - Majority Text compiled by Maurice Robinson & William Pierpont;
6. M-TextHF - 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.
---
To God all the glory for the preservation of the scriptures! He reigns!
No comments:
Post a Comment