Archangel7
New Member
In all my reading of early church fathers I have never seen the issue of “textual criticism”.
There may have been similar rules but as far as I can tell it was not so generally, perhaps Archangel can help.</font>[/QUOTE]Textual criticism was practiced by fathers like Origen and Jerome. Some of the rules they used might look familiar to us today -- for example, the best reading is the one found in the most ancient copies, or one which best fits the writer's style and the context. Occasionally, though, theological reasons took precedence over more objective criteria. For example, Origen rejected the reading "Jesus Barabbas" in Mt. 27:16-17 because the thought that the name of Jesus could never be connected with a villain (Mat. Comm. ser. 121).
Incidentally, the writings of Erasmus reveal the rules he used for preparing *his* Greek text ("the" TR), and these rules are similarly familiar.
(1) Erasmus on using the oldest and best MSS -- "Origen read thus at any rate. And I found it written this way in the Pauline manuscript, the oldest and most correct text...." (Rom. 5 note 16).
(2) Erasmus on the value of corrupt MSS in determining the true reading -- "Granted that the Greek books are just as corrupt as the Latin ones, yet by collating manuscripts that are equally corrupt one can often discover the true reading, for it frequently happens that what has been corrupted by chance in one is found intact in another." ("Capita contra morosos" 69)
"Now granted that the Greek and Hebrew manuscripts are as corrupt as ours, does it follow that we are deprived of any hope of ever emending what is found to be corrupted in our manuscripts? Does it not happen frequently that from several faulty manuscripts - though not faulty in the same way - the true and genuine reading is found?" (LB IX 88C-D)
(3) Erasmus on "the harder reading is to be preferred" -- "And whenever the ancients note a variant reading, the reading that appears absurd at first glance always tends to be the more suspect one, in my opinion; for it stands to reason that a reader who lacked either education or concentration was offended by the absurdity of the expression and changed what was written here." (1 Cor. 15 note 44)
"it is not at all unlikely that some half-learned copyist changed "mneias" to "chreias," especially since the former yields an odd meaning." (Rom. 12 note 23)
(4) Erasmus on scribal additions and harmonizations -- "I suspect that 'Jesus' was added...because the passage is customarily recited this way by the church." (Mt. 1 note 5) "...it appears to have been added on account of hallowed custom." (Mt. 6 note 32); he notes that scribes often copy "not what they find in the manuscripts but what is fixed in their memory." (LB IX 128B)
(5) Erasmus on the primary value of Greek MSS over other ancient versions -- "In discussing sacred texts, the authority of the Greeks has always been predominant." (LB X 1315D)
In light of his own words, one can see that Erasmus' general text critical approach did not differ significantly from that of any modern text critic.
