The Text of Luke II, 22

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NOTES 377

mony with what we conceive to have been the original meaning of
the Logion. For example, Dalman's rendering of the two words,
which makes DJN its starting-point, would suit our emendation of
the text quite as well as it suits Dalman's own interpretation. 3

When we remind ourselves of the frequency with which the phrase
' the Kingdom of Heaven ' occurred in the reports of the Master's
discourses, we realize how easy it would be for some early scribe to
mistake a chance occurrence of words in some measure similar for
just another instance of the great phrase that so frequently recurred.

It is significant, as affording some corroboration of our hypothesis,
that in Matt. 12, 29 Jesus uses the verb Apirafw of plundering the
goods of the Strong Man — the very verb employed in our Logion,
as we interpret it, to describe the successful onset of the new forces
of righteousness upon the Kingdom of Satan.

J. Hugh Michael.

Victoria College,
Tobonto, Canada.

THE TEXT OF LUKE II, 22

This verse contains a textual problem which has perplexed editors
of the New Testament since the days of Erasmus and the Compluten-
sian edition. The question is, What pronoun should be read after
Kodapiafiov? — airrSw, or ahrov, or avrijs?

hbriav is attested by NABLWTAII etc., by nearly all the minuscules,
by the Peshitta, the Harclean, and the Palestinian Syriac, and by
three minor ancient versions (Ethiopic, Armenian, and Gothic).
The Arabic Diatessaron also has the plural pronoun, agreeing with
the Peshitta at this point. Origen found ainw in his text of the Gos-
pel, and, so far as is known, he was acquainted with no other reading
in this place. He quotes Luke 2, 22 in his Fourteenth Homily on
Luke, which deals with the Circumcision and Purification, and he
discusses the difficulty involved in the plural avr&v without mention-
ing any variant reading. If he had known of such, he would certainly
have made some reference to it. The Homiliae in Lucam were written
at Caesarea, after Origen's withdrawal to that city from Alexandria
in the year 231. We may therefore assume that airruv formed part of
Luke 2, 22 in the text current at Caesarea and Alexandria in the early

a The Words of Jesus (English Translation), pp. 141, 142.

378 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

part of the third century, and that there were no rival claimants for
the place. It was also the Antiochian, or ' Syrian,' reading, as its
predominance in the minuscule manuscripts proves.

Avr&v is sometimes explained as referring to the Jews. 1 But this
is contextually objectionable, because the subject understood of
aviiyayov is the parents of Jesus. Moreover, this interpretation be-
comes much more difficult, not to say impossible, if one believes, as
the present writer does, that the first two chapters of Luke (except the
preface) are based on a Semitic original. Some think the plural pro-
noun is used of Mary and Jesus; 2 whilst others, with much better
reason in view of the context, refer avruv to Joseph and Mary.* But
both of these explanations are fraught with the difficulty that the
Mosaic Law prescribed purification only for the mother after child-
birth. No ceremonial impurity attached to the father or to the child.

The feminine pronoun avrrjs is found in no Greek manuscript of the
New Testament. 4 Its attestation is not only of inferior quality; it
is also extremely scanty, being limited to a citation in a work wrongly
ascribed to Athanasius, 6 to a catena on the Gospel, 6 and to Erpenius's
edition of the Arabic published in 1616. 7 Avttjs is obviously a learned
correction either of the reading avr&v or of the variant avrov, which is
discussed below. It was made by some one who knew that the woman
only according to the Jewish Law needed purification after the birth
of a child.

On the other hand Codex Bezae and at least eight minuscules have
airrov after Kadapiaiiov? The Sahidic version and the Amsterdam edi-
tion of the Armenian also have ' his cleansing ' here. 9 Eius of the
Old Latin 10 and the Vulgate, as well as the pronominal suffix in the
Sinaitic Syriac, 11 are ambiguous; they may be interpreted either as
masculine or as feminine. But inasmuch as avrov is an early 'West-
ern ' reading, being found in Codex Bezae and the Sahidic version,
whereas abrfjs is very slightly attested and is doubtless only a learned
correction of avruv or avrov, it seems altogether probable that avrov
rather than afa-rjs underlies the Old Latin and the Sinaitic Syriac.
For the Old Latin and Old Syriac versions were made from manu-
scripts of the 'Western' type. Moreover, there is no evidence that the
reading avrijs was in existence when either of these versions was
made. It is quite possible, however, that many readers of the Old
Latin and Sinaitic Syriac understood the mother of Christ to be
meant. Avrov can only refer to Jesus, whose circumcision and naming
are recounted in verse 21. But from the point of view of the Mosaic
* See notes at the end of the article.

NOTES 379

Law it is erroneous to speak of the purification of the child. Never-
theless, Griesbach regarded avrov as a speciosa lectio, and Zahn thinks
that it may be the right reading in Luke 2, 22. 12

A few authorities have no pronoun at all after Kadaputfiov. 13 The
omission undoubtedly arose from a feeling that the Evangelist could
not have written either avrwv or avrov in this place. This reading,
however, has no more claim to be regarded as correct than the femi-
nine pronoun avrrjs.

The Complutensian editors, 14 followed by Beza and the Elzevir
editions, adopted avrrjs; 15 but Erasmus and Stephanus printed avrwv
in their New Testaments. 16 The Antwerp and Paris Polyglots adhere
to the Elzevir tradition, whereas the London Polyglot reproduces
the text of Stephanus. Avrwv is read by Griesbach, Lachmann, Tisch-
endorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, Baijon, and von Soden. No
editor has ever adopted avrov, and none since Alter has printed avrrjs.

The present writer believes that the first two chapters of Luke
(except the preface) are based on a Semitic source. The Greek
variants in Luke 2, 22 can be readily explained if one assumes, with
Bousset, Gressmann, Plummer, and Moffatt, that the underlying
document was written in Aramaic; and this assumption seems rea-
sonable at least so far as the narrative parts of the chapters are
concerned. 17

The source in Luke 2, 22, like the Targum of Onkelos on Lev. 12,
4 and 6, probably had rUTDn W. The suffix in nni31 was intended to
be read as feminine, meaning ' her purification.' Luke, or whoever
translated the source into Greek, having read in the preceding verse
about the circumcision and naming of Jesus, took it as masculine,
'his purification,' and translated it by Kadapuryav avrov. This was the
original text of Luke 2, 22. But before the time of Origen it was
perceived that avrov could not be right, and it was changed to avruv,
which was suggested by the verb avr)yayov and seemed to improve
the sense. In course of time avr&v became the dominant reading,
though avrov survived in texts which preserved the ' Western ' tra-
dition. But neither avrov nor abr&v was universally satisfactory,
since the Mosaic Law demanded purification of the woman after
childbirth and of her only. Accordingly avrrjs appeared as a learned
correction, but its range was extremely limited until the appearance
of the Complutensian edition in 1522. The adoption of avrrjs into the
text of several early printed editions of the New Testament is due
in part to the Vulgate eius, which was understood as a feminine
pronoun.

380 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW

NOTES

1. So Mill (Novum Testamentum, ed. Kuster, Prol. §§ 676 and 1438); van
Hengel (Annotationes, p. 199); Edersheim (Life and Times of Jesus the
Messiah, 8th ed., i, p. 195, n. 1).

2. So Origen; de Wette; Winer (Grammar, tr. Thayer, p. 147); Hahn.

3. So Meyer, Godet, Alford, Bemhard Weiss, Schanz, Plummer, E. Klos-
termann.

4. Codex 76, a Vienna manuscript of the twelfth or thirteenth century,
is commonly cited as a witness for avrrjs. This, however, is an error; for
Gregory, who examined the codex in 1887, reports that it reads airrSiv in
Luke 2, 22 (cf. Tischendorf, Novum Testamentum Graece, III, 484). Codex
76 is one of the manuscripts consulted by Alter. He printed avrfjs in Luke 2,
22 without recording the reading of this codex. Griesbach inferred from
Alter's silence that abrrjs was found in 76, and in order to indicate that the
citation was based on inference he enclosed the number 76 in parentheses.
It has been pointed out above that this manuscript really has abrcav; and
Alter failed to indicate this fact through carelessness. His edition is sub-
stantially a reprint of 218, a thirteenth century codex in the Imperial Library
in Vienna. Professor Karl Beth, of Vienna, has kindly informed me that it
reads abrGiv in Luke 2, 22. Alter, a Roman Catholic scholar, no doubt
adopted afrrijs from the Complutensian-Elzevir tradition, or possibly from
the Vulgate eius. Scholz, with characteristic inaccuracy, omitted Griesbach's
parentheses about 76, and thenceforth avrrjs passed into the critical tradition
as the true reading of the manuscript.

5. Athanasius (Benedictine ed., Paris, 1698), ii, 418 f.

6. Cf . Cramer, Catenae, ii, p. 22. Augustine's De Consensu Evangelistarum,
ii, 17 is cited by Tischendorf as an authority for eius. The passage runs thus:
dies purgationis matris eius (Benedictine ed., Paris, 1679-1701, iii, col. 38).

7. The Roman edition of the Arabic has no pronoun at this point.

8. Codd. 21, 47, 56, 61, 118, 209, 220, 254.

9. Two Sahidic manuscripts, however, read 'their,' in agreement with
HAB etc. The Amsterdam edition of the Armenian version (1666) is in some
places conformed to the Latin Vulgate (cf. Conybeare in Hastings's Diction-
ary of the Bible, i, 154). Accordingly 'his cleansing' in Luke 2, 22 may be
due to purgationis eius of the Vulgate. Zohrab's critical edition of the New
Testament (1789) has 'their cleansing.'

10. The only Latin authorities known to read eorum are q and 5.

11. The Curetonian Syriac is defective at this point.

12. Cf. Zahn, Kommentar, p. 151, note.

13. Cod. 435, Scrivener's x and y, Amphilochius (Migne P. G. XXXIX,
48), the Latin translation of Irenaeus (Migne P. G. VIE, 877 f.), the Bohairic
version (though six manuscripts have 'their'), and the Roman edition of the
Arabic.

14. What manuscripts the Complutensian editors used in preparing their
edition of the New Testament is not known. It is, however, altogether im-
probable that they had any Greek authority for avrrjs in Luke 2, 22. They
doubtless introduced the word into their text on the strength of the Vulgate
eius (understood as a feminine pronoun), just as they adopted 1 John 5, 7

NOTES 381

and 8 from the current Latin version. In support of abrrjs Mill cites the
Lectiones Velesianae. On these readings, which were really not Greek but
Latin, see Wettstein, Novum Testamentum, I, pp. 59 ft".

15. 'Her purification' of the A. V. represents this tradition. The B. V.
on the other hand reads 'their purification' in accordance with the great
uncial manuscripts. Luther wrote 'ihrer Reinigung,' which is ambiguous;
but Gerbelius's edition of the New Testament (1521, an Erasmian text),
which Luther is said to have used, has aiiTuv. A similar ambiguity is found
in the West Saxon and Northumbrian versions.

16. According to Mill, Erasmus was acquainted with one manuscript that
read avrov.

17. The hymns on the other hand are Hebraic in character, and may have
been composed in Hebrew. Cf. Torrey, in Studies in the History of Religions,
presented to C. H. Toy, pp. 293 f. Professor Torrey thinks that the prose
setting as well as the hymns themselves were written in Hebrew, and in sup-
port of this view he cites the awkward phrase eis iroXtv 'lodSa in Luke 1, 39.
This he regards as an attempt to translate the Hebrew iTTVP J1JHD PN
into Greek. "For the Aramaic NJinD "nm would hardly have been
rendered by eis iroKiv 'Io65a. The word TlfP could not well have been
misunderstood; moreover, it does not look like the name of a town, nor
would it have been transliterated by lovSa" (pp. cit, p. 292). IliT is found
in the Aramaic sections of Ezra and Daniel, but rniiV occurs a number of
times in the Targum on the Prophets as the name of the Southern Kingdom.
Eis irokiv 'loiiSa may therefore represent the Aramaic miiV TIJHD? or
miiT '"I KTIJHW. Similarly, Torrey thinks that 7rpo/36/3ij/t6res ev rats
finkpats aiiToiv in Luke 1, 7 is a translation of DiVD'a D'NJl. But the orig-
inal may quite as well have been Vin |!iVOV3 P?JJ. On a priori grounds
it is more likely that a prose writing which circulated among the Jewish
Christians of Palestine should be written in the vernacular Aramaic than in
the sacred Hebrew, which was to most of them a lingua ignota. Certainly the
first part of Acts is based on Aramaic, not Hebrew, sources. Cf. Torrey,
The Date and Composition of Acts, passim.

W. H. P. Hatch.

The Episcopal Theological School
Cambridge, Mass.