Antithesis.
Antithesis.
§ 355. Those who claim that the Greek sources of the New Testament are corrupt fall into two classes. (1) Some keep saying that heretics have corrupted and forgers have falsified the Scripture of the New Testament. Sixtus Senensis attributes this error “to Mani, Helvidius, the Anabaptists, and the Servetians” (Bibl. sanct., bk. 7, haeres. 1, p. 576). Some of the Papists, however, are caught in the same morass. Gordonus Huntlaeus, Epit. controv. 1, c. 12: “As relates to the Greek text of the New Testament that is now surrounded by foes, in which very thing they place their only refuge, there is no doubt that it has been corrupted in various places, partly because of the carelessness of copyists, partly as a result of the deceit of ancient heretics. As a consequence, that text is not as suitable for producing faith as our adversaries believe, unless the authority of the Church is added.”
(2) Some claim to hold a milder opinion: that the Greek text of the New Testament was corrupted not by the malice of heretics but by the carelessness and negligence of copyists. Bellarmine, De verbo Dei, bk. 2, c. 7: “We can prove easily that the Greek codices have not been totally and completely corrupted…. From several examples it will become clear that they are not everywhere corrupt but that some errors have at times crept in, at least because of the negligence of copyists; and it is not always safe to correct the Latin according to the Greek.” Melchior Canus (Loc. theol., bk. 2, c. 13) and Stapleton (Controv., q. 3, art. 2) accuse the Greek codex of the New Testament “of lack, addition, and corruption.” Both groups offer (1) rational arguments and conjectures; (2) testimonies of the fathers; and (3) some examples of corruption.
§ 356. The rational arguments and testimonies of the fathers can be satisfied if one will observe: (1) From a particular corruption of some Greek codices one cannot infer that the Greek text of the New Testament is simply and absolutely corrupt, because those defects can be corrected from other codices that are still pure and uninjured.
(2) A difference of reading does not immediately imply a general corruption of the Greek text, because that difference occurs only in some passages and because a far greater one is observed among the translations. In addition to this, the greater part of the variations lies in the words rather than in the things expressed “and makes the reason for correction more for exactness than for necessity,” as Franciscus Lucas Brugensis points out in the preface to his Var. lect. But if both readings cannot be kept, one must go back to an inspection of the old and approved texts, to the quoting of the ancient teachers of the Church, to the connection and context of the text, to a comparison of other passages, and to the analogy of faith, as we have shown in our Disp. de dicto 1. Joh. 5.
(3) The question is about the sort of integrity of the Greek text from which the errors and discrepancies of the translations can be corrected and to which one can appeal as to the authentic source. The matter itself shows clearly that such an integrity does befit it.
(4) Some heretics, especially the Marcionites, have indeed tried to corrupt the text of Scripture. But the vigilance of devout teachers of the Church has kept them from achieving that end in all the codices and from foisting that corrupt text on the true Church in place of the genuine Scripture.