F. Gardiner (1875) on Homoioteleuton

Gardiner originally gave a rather long article in Bibliotheca Sacra Apr 1875, reprinted as a book(let) of about 80 pages, complete with some useful charts showing the overlap for the known Uncials and the various books of the NT.

Beginning at about pg 10, Gardiner discusses homoioteleuton as follows:

"To illustrate these [accidental errors], one or two instances under each head are selected from Mr. Hammond's recent convenient little manual (Outlines of Textual Criticism applied to the New Testament. By C. E. Hammond, M.A. Oxford : Clarendon Press. 1872. From this work much of the present paper has been abridged.)

Under errors of sight belong omissions from what is technically called Homoioteleuton. Thus, in Codex C, the words τουτο δε εστιν το θελημα του πεμψαντος με  are omitted in John 6:39, because the last three words had occurred immediately before, and the eye of the scribe passed on from their first to their second occurrence. This happens especially when the same words occur at the end of consecutive lines.

To the same head belong the many instances, more generally in the uncial MSS., arising from the confusion of similar letters such as Α, Λ, Δ ; or Ε ς, Θ Ο. From this arose the well-known and well-disputed reading in 1 Tim. 3:16. Similar letters or syllables are sometimes omitted and sometimes inserted; thus in Matt. 26:39 for ΠΡΟΣΕΛΘΩΝ Cod. B has ΠΡΟΕΛΘΩΝ, and in Luke 9:49 Cod. H has εκβαλλοντα τα δαιμονια for εκβαλλοντα διαμονια . Letters, too, are sometimes transposed, so that in Acts 13:23 for ΣΠΑΙΝ, Codd. H and L read ΣΠΙΑΝ {σωτηρα Ιησου} . The number of errors from this source is very large, as the margin of any critical edition will readily show."

Gardiner's remarks show once again that 19th century Textual Critics were perfectly able to understand and quite capable of identifying homoeoteleuton errors.  

However, they restricted their notice of these to singular readings, and consistently refused to use the evidence of their own eyes to extend these observations, and extrapolate them to the lost exemplars and archetypes of the surviving manuscripts, even when they knew full well that key manuscripts (like א and B) had common ancestors and at least partially shared lines of transmission. 

These factors should have alerted them to the high probability that omissions with identical h.t. features shared by such MSS were obviously also earlier h.t. errors, and not to be inserted into reconstructions of the 'original text'.

But this observation would have run counter to the widespread and overriding agenda to 'dethrone the Textus Receptus'.

 Nazaroo

A.C. Clark (1914) on homoeoteleuton

A.C. Clark produced two important works on NT TC, the first being The Primitive Text of the Gospels and Acts (Oxford, 1914), and the second, his Critical Text of Acts (1933).  Although his continued investigation resulted in modifications and additional details, his basic position remained committed.

Here are some exerpts from the first book (Primitive Text..):

"PREFACE

...Whenever the readings of two MSS ...are compared, ...one of them does not contain passages which occur in the other.   In all such cases there are two possible explanations, viz., that the words are spurious, ...inserted by an interpolater..., or that they are genuine, and have been accidentally omitted by the other [copy].  The hypothesis of accident [omission] is highly probable, when there is a reason which will account for the omission. 

One such reason is universally recognized, viz., homoeoteleuton. [h.t.]  When a similar ending, or word occurs twice in the same sentence, a copyist [could have] easily passed from the first passage to the second, omitting the intermediate words.  This saut du meme au meme ["jump from meme to meme"] is the most prolific cause of omissions. 

There is another reason which is not infrequently suggested by editors, viz., that the scribe has accidentally omitted a line, or several lines, of his model.  When we have two MSS, one which is known to be a transcript of the other, we find actual instances of such omissions.  In the vast majority of cases however, we have only the copy, not the [exemplar].   Since all scribes [copyists] are subject to the same errors, it is reasonable to suppose that omissions in a particular MS may represent a line or number of lines [skipped] in an ancestor... the problem is to find an objective criterion..to detect line-omissions. 

...[groups of] short passages...doubted on the ground of their omission by a MS or family, frequently contain the same, or nearly the same number of letters.  Longer passages in the same way [are] multiples of this unit.  The natural inference is that the unit [and longer omissions] correspond to [physical] lines in [the layout of] an ancestor.

Ancient Uncial MSS are written with few abbreviations and no space between words [with] the number of letters per line ...a more or less constant [average] quantity.

It was also easy for a copyist to omit other divisions in his [exemplar], viz., a colum, page, or folio [folded sheet].   Since it is usual for MSS to have the same # of lines per page, it follows that the contents of columns, pages, & folios are similar [in size]. 

...

The chief result of my investigation has been to show the falsity of the principle brevior lectio potior ("prefer the shorter reading").  This was laid down by Griesbach as a canon of criticism in the words:

"Brevior lectio, nisi testium vetustorum et gravium auctoritate penitus destituatur, praeferenda est verbosiori.  Librari enim multo proniores ad addendum fuerunt quam ad omittendum." 

 "The Shorter reading, unless the authority of the witnesses completely lacks a weight and age, is preferable to the verbose. Copyists were  much more prone to add than to omit."

[But] this statement has no foundation in facts.  I may also observe that it is not so easy to invent as it is to omit. 
...
I had been brought up to look on the Revised Text as final, to smile at persons who maintained the authenticity of St. Mark 16:9-20 or St. John 7:53-8:11, and to suppose that the 'vagaries' of the 'Western text' were due to wholesale interpolation.   The object which I had in view was merely to study the mutual relations of the oldest Greek Uncials, notably, the Vaticanus (B), Sinaiticus (Aleph), and Alexandrinus (A).  I was however, soon dislodged from this arrogant attitude, and irresistibly driven to very different conclusions. 
...
Nowhere is the falsity of the maxim 'Prefer the shorter reading' more evident than in the New Testament.  The process [over time in copying] has been one of contraction, not expansion.  The primitive text is the longest, not the shortest."

(- Clark, 1914,  Preface, iii-vii)

...

Tregelles (1844) on h.t. in Codices A, C

In S. P. Tregelles' first serious work, The Book of Revelation in Greek (1844), he made his first attempt at textual criticism of a NT book, and attempted to base his text solely or nearly completely on ancient manuscripts.   Since Codex B is missing Revelation, and Aleph had not been procured and published, Tregelles relied on Codex A mainly, supplemented by Codex C (where extant) and also a few readings from Codex Basilianus (Vatican 2066, then unpublished), and the later MS 38 (Vatican 579).

Even though Tregelles was one of the most extreme textual critics, insisting on preferring the readings of the oldest MSS over all other evidences, he lists some 20 cases where he recognized that even the combined witness of both A and C were still in error, even though they were in agreement.  Most of these were misspellings (itacisms etc.), but one notable exception was identified by Tregelles as a certain homoeoteleuton type error, Rev. 13:7:

13:6-7 :

  ........................................................................................και ηνοιξεν το
  στομα αυτου εις βλασφημιαν προς τον θεον βλασφημησαι το ονομα
  αυτου και την σκηνην αυτου και τους εν τω ουρανω σκηνουντας
  και εδοθη αυτω πολεμον ποιησαι μετα των αγιων και νικησαι αυτους
  και εδοθη αυτω εξουσια επι πασαν φυλην και γλωσσαν και εθνος

Tregelles seems still to have mis-identified this omission itself, perhaps by naivity, since he actually describes it as a homoeoarcton (similar line beginning) error.

" - omitted from the similar beginning of two clauses; the transcriber's eye must have past from one και εδοθη to the other. " (Tregelles, Introduction, p. xxxiii)

In fact it is not homoeoarcton.  Its a very strong and ordinary homoeoteleuton error (i.e., similar line ending), and it could have arisen from a half-dozen different line-ending arrangements:

 ............   και ηνοιξεν το στομα αυ-

του εις βλασφημιαν προς τον θεον 

βλασφημησαι το ονομα αυτου και τ-

ηνσκηνην αυτου και τους εν τω ου-

ρανω σκηνουντας  και εδοθη αυτω 

πολεμον ποιησαι μετα των αγιων κ-

αι νικησαι αυτους  και εδοθη αυτω

εξουσια επι πασαν φυλην και γλωσ

σαν και εθνος

(example alignment at 26/52 chars per line) 

This could in fact have arisen independently from two different master-copies with entirely different alignments, still resulting in the exact same final text in both Codex A and Codex C.   Because this is such an easily reproduced error, which could have happened in two dozen different configurations, there is no need to assume any dependency or mixture between them. 

Five years later (1849), when completely overhauling his Greek and English text, Tregelles maintained the same opinion.  In his English footnote he writes;

" The clause 'And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them,' is omitted in the most ancient MSS, A and C, and also by Irenaeus; but as all the ancient versions contain them, the omission was probably occasioned by the two following clauses (in the Greek) commencing with precisely the same words; a transcriber, in such cases continually passed from one clause to another."

 Tregelles also retains the line in his final GNT (1857) Volume 6 (p. 982), noting in the apparatus the following:

[include] Aleph, 1 mg.2  rubr. 7. 38. Q.  91. 95. Vulg. Memph. Aeth. Prms. Eraz.  Cmpl. | ad fin. ver. post ethnos Syr. | om. AC. 1*. 14. P. Arm. Zoh. Iren. 326.

mr.scrivener

Codex A: 1st Cor. 9:2 - homoeoteleuton

All the old Uncials have singular errors involving homoeoteleuton, some of which have been recopied into later MSS.

Codex Alexandrinus loses a half-verse at 1st Cor. 9:2(b):

Click to Enlarge: Backbutton to return

With or without the Nomina Sacra abbreviations at the line-ends, this text presents a lengthy span of similar text which could have aligned at the right side of a column any number of ways.

The common (original) text reads:

9:1
ουκ ειμι αποστολος ουκ ειμι ελευθερος ουχι ΙΝ ΧΝ τον
ΚΝ ημων εωρακα ου το εργον μου υμεις εστε εν ΚΩ

9:2
ει αλλοις ουκ ειμι αποστολος αλλα γε υμιν ειμι η
γαρ σφραγις της εμης αποστολης υμεις εστε εν ΚΩ

If the lines of the master-copy were similar to those of Alexandrinus, then the letters would be very evenly spaced and lines would be mostly 20 cpl.

ουκειμιαποστολοςουκει     (20) 
μιελευθεροςουχιΙΝΧΝτ     (20)
ονΚΝημωνεωρακαουτοε    (20)
ργονμουυμειςεστεενΚΩ   (20)

ειαλλοιςουκειμιαποστ       (20)

ολοςαλλαγευμινειμιηγ     (20)

αρσφραγιςτηςεμηςαπο      (19)

στοληςυμειςεστεενΚΩ    (19)

Click to enlarge

The actual span of homoeoteleuton is long, and any number of alignments could have presented the opportunity for an eye-skip.

mr.scrivener