Chapter VII THE NARRATIVE IN MATTHEW
[NX THE five preceding chapters we have been dealing with the Gospel according to Luke. It is now time to turn to the other of the two Gospels that attest the virgin birth of Christ—namely, the Gospel according to Matthew.
This Gospel, unlike the one with which we have just dealt, keeps the personality of the author entirely in the background. In Luke-Acts, the author, although he does not mention his name, does introduce himself personally in his two prologues and does (at least according to the only natural interpretation of his words) indicate by the use of the first person plural the places where he was an eye-witness of the events that he narrates. In the First Gospel, on the other hand, no such phenomena are to be observed. On the contrary, it would be hard to find a book where the personality of the author is kept more completely out of view. It may be possible to detect significance in the way in which the call of Matthew (or Levi) is narrated in this Gospel as compared with the others, if one has already accepted the traditional view of the authorship; but certainly these peculiarities would never in themselves establish that view unless it had already been suggested by other considerations. The decision about the authorship of this Gospel, therefore, depends not upon any specific indications of authorship in the book itselfi—for there are none—but upon our estimate of early Christian tradition on the subject, when taken in connection with the character of the material which the book contains.
Nevertheless, although the First Gospel keeps the personality of its author in the background, it does indicate, by the character of its contents, something of the destination which the author had in mind when he wrote. It is widely held that this Gospel is addressed particularly to the Jews. Its Jewish destination appears, for example, in the peculiar prominence which it assigns to the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy in the events of the life of Jesus, and also, perhaps, in certain answers which it seems to give to specific Jewish attacks.
Exaggerations, indeed, should be avoided at this point. On the one hand, all of the Gospels—not merely this Gospel—are interested in the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy; and on the other hand, this Gospel is certainly not
Jewish in the sense that it stands in any disagreement with the principles of the Gentile mission in the early Church or in the sense that it obtrudes into the history in any disturbing way its answers to Jewish attacks. But despite such qualifications, the essentially Jewish character of the Gospel does seem to stand firm. The differences from the other Gospels in this respect are, indeed, not at all sharp; they are subtle differences of emphasis, rather than clear-cut differences of treatment. Possibly the Gospel from the beginning was intended for Gentiles as well as for Jews; and certainly it was admirably suited to the needs of both. But a certain special Jewish reference cannot be denied.
In this Gospel, as in the Gospel according to Luke, the account of the birth and infancy of Jesus is found in the first two chapters. There can be no doubt but that these chapters formed an original part of the book. Abortive efforts have, indeed, been made in the course of modern criticism to establish a contrary conclusion; but the evidence against them is overwhelming.
Hilgenfeld,! for example, argues that Mt. iii would not be natural if the third chapter was originally joined to what now goes before; the public appearance of John the Baptist, he says in effect, took place many years after the settlement of Joseph and Mary at Nazareth, which is narrated at the close of the second chapter; so that the phrase, “in those days,” as fixing the time of John’s appearance, could hardly have been intended to refer back to that event. Accordingly, Hilgenfeld supposes, the phrase referred originally to the close of the genealogy, Mt. i.18-ii.23 being a later addition. In comparison with the long period of time covered by the genealogy, he thinks, it would be perfectly natural to mean by the phrase, “in those days”, merely “in the time of Jesus” as distinguished from the many previous generations.
But, surely, it may be said in reply, this reference of Mt. iii.r to the genealogy seems rather unlikely; for the genealogy is the expression of one idea, and attention is not fixed, at the end of it, upon one period of time as distinguished from preceding periods. Rather does the phrase, “in those days”, require that something in the nature of a narrative should have gone before, and this requirement is not satisfied by the genealogy. Surely it is much more natural to suppose that the period to which “in those days” refers is the period of residence at Nazareth following upon the settlement of Joseph and Mary there,
1“Friedrich Loofs gegen Ernst Haeckel,” in Zeitschrift fur wissenschafiliche Theologie, xliii, 1900, p. 269. So also Merx, Die vier kanonischen Evangelien nach ihrem altesten bekannten Texte, I1.i, 1902, pp. 14 f. The following discussion of critical attempts to separate Mt. i-ii, in whole or in part, from the rest of the Gospel is similar to the treatment by the present writer in “The
New Testament Account of the Birth of Jesus”, second article, in Princeton Theological Revicw, iv, 1906, pp. 61-63.
which is narrated in Mt. ii23. According to Hillmann,” indeed, who supposes that the whole of the first two chapters and not merely Mt. i.18-11.23 constitutes the later addition, some chronological note similar to that in Liki iii was left off at Mt. iiit by the redactor who added chapters i and ii: the redactor was so far from the time described that he would take no offence at applying the phrase, “in those days”, to what really happened after an interval of thirty years. But in reply it may be said that possibly the author of the Gospel would himself, when he wrote his book, have been looking back over a long enough interval not to have objected to the phrase, especially in view of the loose way (so far as chronology is concerned) in which the incidents are coupled together all through this Gospel. In reality, Mt. 11.23, though it directly relates only an event that took place long before the event narrated in Mt. iiit, really implies a long period of residence at Nazareth following upon that event. It is that period which is in view in the phrase, “in those days.” Meyer,? moreover calls attention to the fact that Mt. iv.13 (where, in distinction from the other Gospels, Nazareth is mentioned) clearly presupposes the settlement of the holy family at Nazareth in Mt. 11.23.
Thus the way in which the third chapter begins does not at all stamp the first two chapters as an addition to the Gospel. Equally unconvincing are the arguments which have been based upon the contents of the section itself. Hilgenfeld* enumerates, as indications that Mt. i.18-11.23 is the work of some one other than the author of the Gospel, (1) the Old Testament pragmatism, (2) the friendly attitude toward the heathen, (3) the view of Christ as being born Son of God. But the “Old Testament pragmatism” rather reveals the hand of the author of the whole Gospel, who is interested throughout in showing the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. The friendly attitude toward the Gentiles proves nothing if the story of the magi is essentially true; for in the mere form of the story, as distinguished from its content, there is no evidence of a desire to magnify the Gentile visitors at the expense of the Jews. Moreover, why may not the author of the whole book himself have felt the contrast between the rejection of the gospel by the Jews and its acceptance by the Gentiles? Finally, with regard to Hilgenfeld’s third point, it may simply be said that the author of the Gospel, as well as a redactor, may have held the view that Christ was born Son of God. Some one—that is, the redactor at least—held to both the Davidic sonship and the virgin birth. Why, then, may not the author have done so?
2" Die Kindheitsgeschichte Jesu nach Lucas,” in Jahrbiicher fir protestantische Theologie,
Against all such hypotheses of later insertion regarding Mt. i-ii may be urged in the first place the unanimity of documentary attestation, and in the second place the striking similarity of language and style that prevails between this section and the main body of the Gospel.
The unanimity of documentary attestation has been questioned by Conybeare® and Hilgenfeld,® who find in a certain Syriac tract, extant in a sixthcentury manuscript,’ evidence to the effect that a.D. 119 or 120 was the earliest date when Mt. ii.1-13 could have been inserted into the text of the Gospel. The tract is attributed to Eusebius and purports to be an account of the Star and the Magi, the history being said to have been written down at a time which can be identified as aw. 119. According to Conybeare, “the Syriac author of this tract... had in his hands a precanonical Greek source of 119 or 120,” to which belonged the colophon that gives the date. No doubt the document is interesting, but the conclusions drawn from it are, to say the least, problematical and seem to have won no noteworthy acceptance among modern scholars.° We may therefore fairly insist that the documentary attestation of Mt. iii as a part of the First Gospel is for all practical purposes unanimous. If there was ever a form of the Gospel without these chapters, it has left no trace in any of the widely divergent lines of transmission in which the text has come down to us.
This weight of external evidence is amply confirmed by the stylistic characteristics of the section, which display a marked affinity with the rest of the First Gospel. This affinity was pointed out one hundred years ago by Gersdorf, in the book to which reference has already been made; ® and subsequent investigation has not served at all to overthrow his conclusion. One peculiarly Matthzan characteristic which will be noticed even by the casual reader is the formula of Old Testament citation, “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet,” which occurs several times in Mt. i-ii. Hilgenfeld is able to avoid the cogency of this link between the infancy section and the rest of the Gospel only by supposing that the occur-
™The manuscript was published by William Wright in Journal of Sacred Literature, ix (new series), 1866, pp. 117-136; and a translation was published by the same writer in the same journal, x, 1867, pp. 150-164.
Against Conybeare’s argument, see Moffatt, Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, third edition, 1918, printing of 1925, pp. 251 f. Moffatt regards Mt. i-ii as an original part of the Gospel (op. cit., pp. 250 f.).
®Gersdorf, Beitrage sur Sprach-characteristik der Schriftsteller des Neuen Testaments, 1816.
rences of the formula in the body of the Gospel are due to a redactor. In this supposition he has not, so far as we know, been followed by any later investigators.
In view of the conjunction of external and internal evidence it is not surprising that few, if any, contemporary scholars of note are inclined to follow Hillmann,’® Hilgenfeld, and Merx* in regarding Mt. i.18-ii.23 or the whole of the first two chapters as a later addition. There is today no doubt general agreement with the view which J. Weiss expressed ’* in 1903 to the effect that there never were forms of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke without the infancy sections..
As for the attempt of Charles** to prove that the genealogy, as distinguished froin the narrative of the birth and infancy, is an addition to the Gospel made at about av. 170, that is interesting only as a curious example of the way in which more usual critical theories are sometimes reversed. Conybeare ** has shown in reply how impossible it would have been for the genealogy to have been added at that late date, when interests other than the interest in the Davidic descent were predominant; and Badham 15 has argued with some weight against separating Mt. ia-17 from Mt. i.18-11.23 at all. Certainly there can be no doubt whatever but that the genealogy was part of the original Gospel, and (when this conclusion is taken in connection with what has been said above) that the whole of Mt. i-ii is genuine.
The Matthzan account of the birth and infancy is not possessed of quite so marked literary characteristics as those which appear in the corresponding natrative in Luke. In particular we miss here any such striking contrast as that which exists between the Lucan prologue and the narrative that immediately follows. That contrast served to set off the Semitic character of Lk. i.5-ii. 52 with special clearness. Even apart from the absence of such contrast, moreover, the style of Mt. i-ii is perhaps less markedly Semitic than that of the Lucan section. Here, as elsewhere, the First Gospel preserves, linguistically, a sort of middle course; in the infancy section, as elsewhere, it lacks the roughness of Mark, the Greek literary touches that appear at various places in Luke-Acts, and the Old Testament poetic beauty of the Lucan infancy narrative.
11 Die vier kanonischen Evangelien nach ihrem Gltesten bekannten Texte, II. i, 1902, pp. 14 f.
Nevertheless, the essentially Jewish and Palestinian character of Mt. i-ii is scarcely less plain than that of Lk. i-ii. Here, as in the Lucan narrative, we find as great simplicity of sentence-structure as might be expected even in a direct translation from a Semitic source. The parataxis is, indeed, less strongly marked than in Lk. i-ii; there are fewer definite Hebraisms or Aramaisms, perhaps none in the strict sense at all: but on the other hand there is nothing in the style of this section that would seem unnatural for a Jew who knew both Aramaic and Greek. The content of the narrative, moreover, is even more clearly Jewish than the form. There is here, as in Lk. i-ii, a complete understanding of Jewish feeling, and a complete absence of anything that would seem natural only in a Gentile environment or only in a late period in the history of the apostolic Church. Familiarity with Jewish custom is seen especially in the way in which betrothal is treated as being in so far equivalent to marriage as that it could be broken off only by a formal divorce. In that respect the Jewish law was not only totally unlike our modern institutions, but also totally unlike the prevailing institutions in the Greco-Roman world. What is at this point presented as a matter of course in Mt. i.18-25 would have seemed very strange to a Gentile writer of the first century.’® Old Testament prophecy is cited in Mt. i.18-ii23 no less than five times, despite the brevity of the section; and the genealogy is presented in a way thoroughly consonant with Jewish ideas, But such observations in detail are only supplementary to the more subtle, but even more convincing, evidence of a Jewish origin that is to be found in the entire spirit and outlook of the narrative.
One recent writer, Box, has-endeavored to characterize a little more precisely the Jewish form of this section; he sees in the first two chapters of Matthew, as in the corresponding section in Luke, a typical Jewish Midrashic narrative, in which certain fundamental historical information (notably that concerning the virgin birth) is elaborated in a legendary way.’? One may perhaps employ the observations of Box as to the Jewish character of the narrative without relinquishing, as he does, the historicity of the secondary features. Why may not the form of Jewish narration have been preserved even if in this case there was genuine historical information to cover not merely the central events but also those things which formed their setting? Box has certainly performed a useful service in showing by independent observation that the Matthzan narrative of the birth and infancy is of a genuinely Jewish character.
In the case of Matthew, we are not called upon, as we were in connection with Luke, to face any serious denial of the integrity of the section. Efforts have indeed been made to show that the second chapter possesses a certain independence as over against the first. Bethlehem, it has been said, for example, is first mentioned at Mt. ii.1, instead of at the beginning of the narrative in Mt. i.18, as might be expected if the section were all of one piece.'® But this objection depends upon the view—which we think erroneous—that the birth narrative in Matthew represents Bethlehem rather than Nazareth as the original home of Joseph and Mary. If the narrator was not engaging in free invention, but was bound by the facts, and if the facts at this point were what they are represented as being in the parallel narrative in Luke, then Bethlehem could not have been mentioned at Mt. i.18, for the simple reason that it was not as a matter of fact the place at which most of the events recorded in Mt. i.18-25 took place. There is nothing surprising, therefore, in finding the first mention of Bethlehem in Mt. iit. Indeed, even if the narrator supposed Bethlehem and not Nazareth to have been the original home of Joseph and Mary, and even if he were not bound, in Mt. i.18-25, by a source of information that took account of the opposite view, still we do not think that the failure to mention Bethlehem before Mt. iit would be at all surprising. After all, it was as the place of the birth and not as the place of preceding events that Bethlehem was important to the narrator; for it was to the birth that the Old Testament prophecy, as used by the narrator, referred. Moreover, Bethlehem needed to be mentioned at the beginning of the story of the magi because the geographical facts were important for the understanding of the story that follows. From every point of view, therefore, and even aside from the question whether Nazareth was or was not recognized in the narrative as the place of the preceding events, Mt. ii. and not Mt. i218 is the place where the first mention of Bethlehem was naturally to be expected.
A positive connection between Mt. ii and Mt. i.18-25 is perhaps to be found in the way in which throughout the story of the magi Joseph and Mary and Jesus are designated. Joseph is never designated as the father of Jesus, though Mary is designated as His mother; Jesus is never designated as Joseph’s son; and Mary is never designated as Joseph’s wife. Instead, Joseph is told by the angel to take “the young child and His mother,” and the same phraseology ss used in connection with the carrying out of the commands. Why are the terms “son” and “wife” so carefully avoided? The latter term occurs, indeed, a number of times in the preceding chapter;’® and, no doubt, if it had occurred in Mt. ii, it would not at all have involved a denial of the supernatural conception. Yet we cannot help feeling that its non-occurrence is significant. The manner in which the relationship of Joseph to Mary and the child is treated throughout the story of the magi is natural only if there was something unique in that relationship; Joseph is represented as the guardian of the mother and the child, but by various subtle touches is set over against them in a way which would perhaps be strange if he were regarded as being in a physical sense the father of Jesus. The most natural conclusion is that Mt. ii presupposes the virgin birth as it is narrated in Mt. i.18-25. Finally, the two passages are bound together by the most striking similarity of style and spirit. The unprejudiced reader receives an overpowering impression that the whole infancy section is of a piece. We have here a strikingly Jewish and clearly unitary narrative of the birth and infancy of Jesus.
That narrative certainly contains an account of the virgin birth. There can be no thought of removing the supernatural conception from this narrative by an interpolation hypothesis, as was attempted in the case of Luke. The | entire section, Mt. i.18-25, is intended to set the virgin birth clearly over against a birth by ordinary generation from Joseph and Mary.
Nevertheless, although the virgin birth obviously cannot be removed from this narrative by any mere deletion of a few verses, an attempt has been made to discover in Mt. i.16 a witness to the contrary view that would make Jesus in a physical sense a son of Joseph. This attempt has been based upon a peculiar reading of the so-called “Sinaitic Syriac,” an individual manuscript of the Old Syriac version of the Gospels, which was discovered in the monastery of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai in 1892. The reading has been translated by F, C. Burkitt ° as follows:
Jacob begat Joseph; Joseph, to whom was betrothed Mary the Virgin, begat Jesus called the Messiah.
There, it has been said, is an important testimony against the supernatural conception of Jesus; the Sinaitic Syriac contains the momentous words, “Joseph... begat Jesus.”
Subsequent discussion has altogther failed to confirm the importance which was formerly, and no doubt to some extent is still, attributed to this reading by popular opponents of the doctrine of the virgin birth. But undoubtedly the reading is interesting, and deserves to be examined with some care.”4
*1 Use has been made, in the following treatment of the text of Mt. i.16, of the article (by the present writer), “ Matthew 1:16 and the Virgin Birth,” in The Presbyterian, for March 18, 191 Gs
The Sinaitic Syriac manuscript,” in which the reading is found, is a “palimpsest”; the vellum was used a second time after the original writing had been partly obliterated. The upper writing, which treats of the lives of certain Syrian saints, was produced in the eighth century; the under writing, with which alone we are concerned, constitutes an ancient copy of the Gospels in the Syriac language. The under writing was probably produced about the beginning of the fifth century or possibly a little earlier. It is not true, therefore, as has sometimes been popularly supposed, that the Sinaitic Syriac is our earliest copy of the Gospels; for two of the Greek manuscripts, the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus, are to be dated earlier still. Nevertheless, it is very ancient and deserves the most careful attention.
The Sinaitic Syriac displays a marked similarity to another Syriac manuscript of the Gospels, the so-called “Curetonian Syriac,” which was probably produced a little later. The widespread agreement of these two manuscripts is due, no doubt, to the fact that they are copies of the same translation of the Greek Gospels into Syriac, the Curetonian being a much less faithful copy than the Sinaitic. This translation, which is called the “Old Syriac,” to distinguish it from the “Peshitta,” the well-known Syriac translation of the early part of the fifth century, was probably made as early as a.p. 200. Another early form of the Gospels in Syriac was the Syriac form of the “Diatessaron” of Tatian. The Diatessaron, however, was not a translation of the four Gospels complete, but was a kind of Gospel harmony, the material of the four Gospels being pieced together in such a way as to form one continuous life of Christ. Unfortunately, the original text of the Diatessaron can be reconstructed only in a very imperfect manner. It seems clear that there is some direct relation between the Diatessaron and the Old Syriac, but it is not clear whether the Diatessaron used the Old Syriac, or the Old Syriac the Diatessaron. If the Diatessaron used the Old Syriac—that is, if the Old Syriac was produced first—then the production of the Old Syriac translation must be placed near the middle rather than at the close of the second century. The reverse relation, however, seems to be somewhat more probable.
In the light of what has just been said, it will be observed that in order for a peculiar reading of the Sinaitic Syriac to be regarded as preserving the original text of a passage in the Gospels, the following assumptions, normally at least, must be made:
(1) In the first place, the Sinaitic Syriac must be supposed to reproduce accurately, at the point in question, the original Old Syriac translation. Of
2 The following presentation of the facts concerning the Syriac versions is not based upon independent research, but is simply a summary of the opinions of the experts in this field.
course this assumption is sometimes not in accord with the facts; we do not know how many copyings of the Old Syriac intervened before the production of our Sinaitic manuscript; probably there were many opportunities for mistakes to be made.
(2) In the second place, supposing that the Sinaitic Syriac does represent accurately the original Old Syriac translation, it must further be assumed that the Old Syriac translation is a literal and accurate translation, at the point in question, of the Greek manuscript from which it was made. Unless it is a literal and accurate translation, a re-translation of it into Greek will not allow us to draw any inference as to the underlying Greek text, and it is just that underlying Greek text with which we are concerned.
(3) In the third place, supposing that the Sinaitic Syriac does represent accurately the original Old Syriac translation, and supposing that that Old Syriac translation does represent accurately the underlying Greek text, it must further be assumed that the underlying Greek text, at the point in question, has reproduced accurately the autograph of the New Testament book. The: underlying Greek text from which the Old Syriac translation was made was a text of about a.D. 150 to 200; we do not know how many copyings had intervened between the New Testament autographs and the manuscripts of that time; undoubtedly within the interval there was abundant opportunity for error to creep in.
Such, in general terms, is the character of the witness which the Sinaitic Syriac bears to the original Greek text of the Gospels. It remains to consider the particular problem of Mt. i.16. This verse appears in the witnesses to the text of the New Testament in the following three forms, of which the second and third are, formally at least, very much alike:
I. And Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ.
This reading is attested by almost all of the many hundreds of Greek manuscripts (including the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus, and other representatives of the so-called “Neutral” type of text), and by all the translations except the Old Latin and the Old Syriac.* Such a consensus of testimony would show clearly that the reading is at least as early as the second century, and a quotation by Tertullian confirms that conclusion.
II. And Jacob begat Joseph, to whom having been betrothed the Virgin Mary bare Jesus who is called Christ. 23 Merx (of. cit., II. i, pp. 13 f.) supposes that the earliest form of the Armenian translation constitutes another exception. It is not important for us to consider whether this supposition is or is not correct.
This reading is attested by the so-called “Ferrar Group,” consisting of a number of Greek cursive manuscripts, and, in essentials, by the manuscripts of the Old Latin translation, which was made probably in the latter part of the second century in North Africa. The reading of the Curetonian Syriac is also very similar; Burkitt translates that reading as follows: “Jacob begat Joseph, him to whom was betrothed Mary the Virgin, she who bare Jesus the Messiah.”
III. Jacob begat Joseph; Joseph, to whom was betrothed Mary the Virgin, begat Jesus called the Messiah.?4
This reading is attested by the Sinaitic Syriac, and by it alone. Other evidence for a text containing the words, “Joseph... begat Jesus,” has proved to be illusory.”° It should be observed that even the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac clearly implies the virgin birth of Christ (because it speaks of Mary the virgin), though it also contains an apparent contradiction of it.
If we had to choose between I and II, the choice would certainly fall upon I,
In the first place, although both readings are ancient, the attestation of I is far stronger. The high estimate which Westcott and Hort placed upon the so-called “Neutral” type of text, relatively to the other types, has at the very most been somewhat modified by subsequent investigation; it has certainly not been overthrown.
In the second place, the first reading looks in itself far more as though it were correct than does the second. If the author of the Gospel had written II, it is hard to see how any scribe would have been led to substitute I for it; whereas if I was genuine, it is easy to explain the substitution of II. It will be observed that I does not definitely refer to the virgin birth. Of course, when it is contrasted with the rest of the genealogy, and especially when it is taken in connection with Mt. i.18-25, it implies the virgin birth in the clearest possible way; but the words themselves do not actually exclude the view that Jesus was in a physical sense the son of Joseph; indeed Joseph is called without explanation the “husband” of Mary. Now some later readers of the Gospels were inclined to look askance upon any such even merely apparent ambiguity; they were inclined to avoid the word “husband” in referring to Joseph; they were inclined to emphasize the virginity of Mary at every point, leaving nothing to the intelligence of the reader. To copyists of this way of thinking,
4 The translations from the Syriac in the present part of our discussion are those of Burkitt,
Mt. i.16, in the form to which we are accustomed, would have given difficulty. Most copyists, indeed, fortunately did not allow their own reflections to interfere with their duties as scribes; they simply copied the text faithfully, without asking questions. But evidently some one scribe in the second century proceeded in a different way; he apparently jumped to the conclusion that Matthew could not have weitten what stands in reading I, and therefore thought that he was correcting some previous copyist’s error when he substituted reading II. To us, this seems to be a very remarkable procedure, but it did not seem so to a certain class of ancient scribes; it is analogous to what may be observed elsewhere in the history of the New Testament text. From the faulty copy thus produced by a second-century scribe the extant witnesses to reading II have descended; from the correct copies have come the great mass of our manuscripts.
Thus the first of the three readings will explain the origin of the second, but the second will not explain the origin of the first; the second, but not the first, can be explained as due to the mistake of a scribe. But if the first - reading cannot be explained as due to the mistake of a scribe, it can be explained only as due to the author—in other words, as part of the original text. There is no difficulty whatever about such an explanation; for the first reading is admirably in accord with the context. Some unintelligent copyist took offence because this reading represented Joseph, without explanation, as the “husband” of Mary. But in reality, such a representation is exactly in accord with the author’s purpose. In the whole of the first chapter, the author is interested, not only in showing that Jesus was not in a physical sense the son of Joseph, but also (and just as earnestly) in showing that Jesus was the legal heir of David and Abraham through Joseph. In order that this second point might be proved, it was necessary to show clearly that Joseph was Mary’s husband at the time when Jesus was born. The second reading, therefore, is not only, in its extreme clumsiness of sentence-construction, out of harmony with Matthew’s style; it also obscures the main point of the genealogy.
Thus from every point of view the first of our three readings is vastly more likely to be correct than the second. The first looks unmistakably like the work of the original author, and the second looks unmistakably like the error of a scribe.
But how is it with the third reading, the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac? The answer is really very plain. The third reading is nothing in the world but a variety of the second reading, and therefore shares in the condemnation which that second reading has just received. If the third reading were part of the original text of the Gospel, the origin of the second reading might be explained; but the origin of the first reading, for the reasons that have just been set forth, would at least be very puzzling. A scribe who, out of zeal for the virgin birth, set about changing the reading, “Joseph... begat Jesus,” would not have been likely to remove the word “virgin,” which already stood in that reading, and insert instead, without explanation, the word “husband.” On the other hand, if the first reading was part of the original text, both the other readings may be explained as due to the mistakes of scribes. The second reading was derived from the first in the way which has been explained above; and as for the derivation of the third from the second, that may have happened in any one of a number of ways.
Possibly, for example, the third reading may have been derived from the second by a mere careless blunder, of the kind called “dittography.” There is a striking monotony in the wording of the genealogy—“Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat...” The mistake of the scribe of the Sinaitic Syriac (or of some ancestor of it) may have consisted simply in letting this monotony run away with him—simply in carrying it one step too far. It will be observed that every name in the genealogy up to Joseph is written twice in succession.2* What, then, was more natural than for a careless scribe to write this name twice also, and thus to be led to produce the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac? If the mistake had appeared in a Greek manuscript, or if it could be regarded with any plausibility as having been originally produced in the course of the Greek transmission, we should be rather positive in advocating this first explanation; in Greek, the word used for “bare” (referring to the mother) in the reading of the Ferrar Group (II) is exactly the same as the word for “begat”; thus the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac in Greek would be derived from the reading of the Ferrar Group by little more than the mere insertion of the words “And Joseph.” ** In Syriac, the difference seems to be somewhat greater; but if a scribe had once made the initial mistake of repeating the word “Joseph”, he might naturally, and half unconsciously, proceed to any slight further changes that might be involved.
Another explanation—that of Burkitt—is that the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac was produced by a mistranslation in the original Old Syriac translation of about a.. 200; and still other explanations have been proposed. Clearly, at
26 In Greek the word “and” is not inserted, as in English, between the two successive occurrences of each name. The genealogy runs, ’ABpady éyévynge dv "Ioadk, Toad 6¢ x. 7. dr.
27 It would also, perhaps, have been necessary to change urnorevdeioa to EuvnorebOn. But in the first place that change would be easy; and in the second place wynoreweiva. might conceivably be allowed to remain as a predicate nominative with a verb “to be’ understood. No doubt this latter usage would be an unwarrantable use of an aorist participle; but it might well escape notice by a careless scribe.
any rate, the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac, in one way or another, may be understood as a mere mistake in the transmission of the text. And if it may be so understood, surely it must be. It must always be remembered that the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac does not compete for our favor on anything like equal terms with the other readings. Both the other readings are widely attested; both of them must have originated at least as early as the second century. The reading of the Sinaitic Syriac, on the other hand, is not found at all in the original language of the New Testament; and it is entirely isolated, being found only in one manuscript. Such isolated readings must always be viewed with great suspicion; they may be due to the mere careless, uncorrected blunder of the scribe of the individual manuscript in question. If the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac had strong and early attestation, it might be a debatable question whether it was not part of the original text, and the other two readings pious emendations made by orthodox scribes; but since, as a matter of fact, its attestation is not strong and early, and since it can be accounted for plausibly as arising merely by an ordinary blunder in the course of the transmission, this latter explanation of its origin is certainly to be accepted.
The view, therefore, that the Sinaitic Syriac at Mt. i.16 represents the original text of the Gospel can be maintained only by textual criticism of the most adventurous and unscientific mind. The reading of the Sinaitic Syriac cannot with certainty be traced back of a. 400, while the common reading is clearly attested at the beginning of the third century, and certainly was present considerably before that time; the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac looks as though it may well be the mere mistake of a scribe or translator, while the common reading looks unmistakably like the work of the author of the Gospel, and defies any other explanation of its origin.”®
Thus if we have to choose between the attested readings at Mt. i.16, it is clear that the familiar reading of the “Neutral” type of text deserves acceptance. But at this point an objection may be raised. Why, it may be asked, do we have to choose merely between the attested readings? Why may we not posit as original a reading which, even though it does not appear in any of our witnesses to the text, will account for the origin of all of the readings that do so appear? Such a reading, it may be said, could be found in the words, “Joseph begat Jesus.” If in the original text of the Gospel those words appeared
28 Tt is therefore extremely misleading when James Moffatt, in his popular translation of the New Testament, following von Soden’s Greek text, reproduces the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac at Mt. i.16 without any explanation. In criticism of von Soden’s text at other points, see the article by William P. Armstrong to which reference has already been made, “Von Soden’s Text and Matthew 1.16,” in Princeton Theological Review, xii, 1915, pp. 461-468.
without explanation, they would naturally give offence to orthodox scribes; there was, therefore, a strong motive for the introduction of some sort of explanatory gloss. As a matter of fact—so the hypothesis runs—two lines of emendation appeared in the course of transmission. One is found in the words, “to whom was betrothed the virgin Mary,” which seemed to safeguard the virgin birth. At first these words were allowed to stand as a modifier of the word “Joseph” in the sentence, “Joseph begat Jesus”; thus we have the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac, “Joseph, to whom was betrothed Mary the Virgin, begat Jesus called the Messiah.” But then it came to be observed that this text involves a contradiction: how could it have been said that “Joseph begat Jesus,” if Joseph was only “betrothed” to Mary and if Mary was a “virgin”? As a result of such reflections, the word “Joseph,” as subject of the verb translated “begat,” was omitted; and “Mary,” not “Joseph,” was made the subject of that verb. The verb would then have, of course, to be translated, in English, “bare” instead of “begat.” Thus we have the reading of the Ferrar group, of certain manuscripts of the Old Latin version, and of the Curetonian Syriac. But parallel with this whole line of emendation—so the hypothesis continues— another line was chosen by the ancestor of our earliest Greek manuscripts —another method of bringing the original text, “Joseph begat Jesus,” into conformity with the doctrine of the virgin birth. This method was the omission of the words, “Joseph begat Jesus,” and the substitution for them of the words, “the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus.”
Thus, it is said, a reading, “Joseph begat Jesus,” will account admirably for the origin of all the extant variants, and so must be regarded as original. Such, in essentials, is the hypothesis of Merx, in his work on the “earliest known text” of the Gospels.”
In reply, it may be said, in the first place, that the method of conjectural emendation, which is here followed, can be applied only with the greatest caution to a work which has so extraordinarily rich a documentary attestation as has the Gospel according to Matthew. In the case of many classical authors, where we have only one or two late and obviously very imperfect manuscripts, an editor is often justified in rejecting the transmitted text of a passage and in substituting for it a reading which shall best account for the obviously incorrect wording of those manuscripts that happen to be extant. But in the case of the Gospels, the extant documentary attestation is so very abundant, and the various lines of transmission began to diverge at such an
29Merx, Die vier kanonischen Evangelien nach ihrem dltesten bekannten Texte, II. i, 1902, PP. 5-19.
early time, that one has difficulty in understanding how the original text could have been so completely obliterated as to leave no trace. There may indeed be such instances, where all of our extant witnesses to the text have been corrupted; but surely they are very few. Thus although conjectural emendation cannot be excluded in principle from the textual criticism of the New Testament, it should certainly be employed there in the most sparing possible way. The employment of it in any passage should be regarded as a counsel of desperation, to be resorted to only when all ordinary methods fail. If it is possible to regard any one of the extant variants as original, that alternative should be chosen; and the critic should not undertake to reproduce by conjecture a text which has actually left no trace.
In the case of Mt. i.16, if there is any truth in what has been said above, we are by no means reduced to such desperate expedients. It is perfectly possible to understand the reading attested by our earliest Greek manuscripts as belonging to the original text of the Gospel, and both the variants as having been produced from that reading in the course of the transmission by — well-known causes of textual corruption. But if such a solution of the problem is possible, it is surely—in view of the wealth of documentary attestation— decidedly preferable. What need is there of going so far afield to solve a problem for which a satisfactory solution lies near at hand?
There is, however, another objection to Merx’s theory as to Mt. i.16. It is found in the contents of the section, Mt. i.18-25, which immediately follows. That section is not in harmony with the proposed reading, “Joseph begat Jesus,” at Mt. i16. We do not_mean that the disharmony is an altogether irreconcilable one. The words, “Joseph begat Jesus,” could, as we shall see, be understood in a sense congruous with the account of the virgin birth that follows. But, after all, the reader may naturally suppose that an author who had the contents of the following section in mind would have prepared for that section at the point where the birth of Jesus is first mentioned— namely, at the close of the genealogy in Mt. i.16. Thus it is the reading of our earliest Greek manuscripts, and not the conjectural reading proposed by Merx, which really suits the context.
Merx is able to overcome this objection only by supposing that Mt. i.18-25— indeed, the whole of Mt. i.18-ii23—formed no original part of the Gospel. Thus the change in Mt. i.16 would in accordance with his view be only one manifestation of a serious interpolating activity which reversed the entire representation of the birth of Jesus with which the Gospel begins. We have already noticed the insuperable objections to any such hypothesis; Mt. i.18-ii.23, we observed, is united to the rest of the Gospel in the most unmistakable way.
Thus Merx’s view with regard to Mt. i.16 depends upon a quite untenable view with regard to the entire infancy section; and for that reason, in addition to other reasons, must certainly be rejected. There is really not the slightest ground for departing from the best-attested text at Mt. i.16.
We have not yet, however, quite finished our discussion of this verse. We have shown that the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac was not part of the original text of the Gospel; but even if so much should be granted—even if it should be granted that the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac is due, not to the author, but to a copyist—it might still be maintained that that reading is historically valuable. How did a copyist come to introduce the startling sentence, “Joseph... begat Jesus”? Only, it has sometimes been said, because there was lying back of the genealogy in the first chapter of Matthew a written source, or at any rate an oral tradition, which represented Jesus as being in a physical sense the son of Joseph; the scribe who produced the reading, “Joseph... begat Jesus,” has caused the original representation of the birth of Jesus to shine through even in a Gospel which has itself striven to obliterate that representation. But surely the evidence for such a view is exceedingly slender. The reading of the Sinaitic Syriac can be explained as due to the ordinary processes of textual corruption; what need is there, therefore, of resorting to so far-reaching an hypothesis? Indeed, the action of the hypothetical scribe who allowed himself to be influenced by the supposed tradition of the physical paternity of Joseph is quite inconceivable. That scribe himself was surely convinced of the opposite view of the birth of Jesus; otherwise he would not have retained Mt. i.18-25 in its present form: *° why, then, did he gratuitously introduce contradiction? It is unscientific to resort to a difficult and complicated explanation of a textual error when a perfectly simple explanation lies ready to hand.
Evidently, therefore, the common reading at Mt. i.16 represents correctly the original text of the Gospel, and the variants are to be explained as due to the ordinary processes of corruption. It should now be observed, finally, that this textual question is not by any means so important as has sometimes been. maintained. Suppose we were quite wrong with regard to it, suppose that Mt. i.16 originally contained the words attested by the Sinaitic Syriac, suppose even that the original text had simply “Joseph begat Jesus” without qualification (a reading which as a matter of fact is found in no manuscript), even then no conclusion derogatory to the attestation of the virgin birth would necessarily follow. The word “begat” in the genealogy in Matthew clearly is
%”Jt should always be remembered that the Sinaitic Syriac narrates the virgin birth in this section just as clearly as does any other manuscript, not to be taken in the physical sense. As Burkitt pertinently remarks, “the contemporaries of the Evangelist knew their Bible at least as well as we do”; “they knew that there were more than fourteen generations between David and the Captivity, that Joram did not beget Uzziah, and that Josiah did not beget Jeconiah.” The word “begat” in the genealogy means simply “had as a legal heir.” At any rate, it certainly had that meaning to the Evangelist, if he did write “Joseph begat Jesus”; for certainly Mt. i.18-25, the passage that immediately follows, excludes the physical paternity of Joseph in the clearest possible terms. Of course, the case would be different if Mt. i.18-25 were no original part of the Gospel of Matthew; but for such a view there is not a jot of manuscript evidence, and the passage in question exhibits in a very striking way the characteristics of the Gospel. Evidently, therefore, if the author of the Gospel wrote “Joseph begat Jesus,” he meant nothing derogatory to the virgin birth, but used the word “begat” in a broad sense. Such a use of the word would have been far more natural among the Jews of the first century than it would be in the Western world of today; an adoptive relationship, as _ we have seen, meant more to them than it does to us; to the Jewish mind a son born of Joseph’s wife, and acknowledged by him as his heir, was to all intents and purposes his son.
The reading of the Sinaitic Syriac at Mt. i.16 is accordingly without bearing upon the question of the historicity of the virgin birth; even if the author wrote “Joseph begat Jesus,” he did not mean to assert the physical paternity of Jesus.** But this whole latter part of our discussion has been merely for the sake of the argument. As a matter of fact, the author did not write “Joseph begat Jesus,” or any such thing, but he wrote exactly what we find in our Bibles. He was, indeed, very much interested in showing that Jesus was heir of David through Joseph. But he was just as much interested in showing that Jesus was not son of Joseph by ordinary generation. Jesus belonged, indeed, to the house of David; in Him the promises were fulfilled. But He belonged to that house in a more wonderful way than could easily have been foreseen; He was a gift granted to the house of David by a mysterious act of God.
81 In coming to this conclusion we can appeal to the authority of Burkitt, who certainly is not influenced by any apologetic motive. See Burkitt, op. cit., ii, p. 261. The curious interpretation proposed by C. C. Torrey (“The Translations Made from the Original Aramaic Gospels,” in Studies in the History of Religions Presented to Crawford Howell Toy, 1912, p. 303) to the effect that according to Matthew the Holy Spirit “anticipated Joseph,” so that the child “had thus | three parents,” is surely quite impossible. Compare above, pp. 128 f.
A number of peculiar readings occur in the Sinaitic Syriac in Mt. i.18-25. Thus in verse 21 this manuscript reads, “she shall bear to thee a son”; and in verse 25 it omits the words, “knew her not until,” and reads simply, “And she bore to him a son.” In these readings, when they are taken in conjunction with the reading, “Joseph... begat Jesus,” in verse 16, some scholars have detected an “Ebionite” tendency, which, they think, exalts Joseph’s place with reference to the child Jesus and perhaps preserves traces of an original representation that made Joseph actually the father. But closer examination renders the matter to say the least very doubtful. The addition of the words “to thee” and “to him” is quite consonant with the supernatural conception; Joseph was the heir of David, and the child, though born without his agency, was born in a real sense “to him.” A scribe may well have allowed the familiar words “to thee” and “to him”*® to creep in, without observing that their omission in Matthew was significant.
As for the omission by the Sinaitic Syriac of the words, “knew her not until,” in Mt. i2s5, that has, if anything, exactly the opposite significance to the significance which has been attributed to it. It rather looks as though an orthodox scribe had been offended by the implication which might seem to lie in the words, “knew her not until,” to the effect that after Mary had brought forth her son Joseph did live with her as with his wife, so that she had other children®* This implication would be removed by the omission of the words, as in the Sinaitic Syriac. Thus the reading of the Sinaitic Syriac may conceivably be explained as a doctrinal correction, intended to safeguard the perpetual virginity of Mary. At any rate, it certainly cannot be explained with any plausibility as an Ebionite correction or as preserving any original tradition of a physical paternity of Joseph.