c. Early recensions of Romans
4. The text of Romans
a. English Versions
This commentary is designed as a companion to the study of the text of Romans; it cannot be used without constant reference to the letter which it endeavours to expound and annotate.
The text on which the commentary is based is that of the RSV (1971 edition); but it can be used equally well with the NEB (1970) or the NIV (1978). In all three of these the English translation is based on what is called an ‘eclectic’ Greek text. That is to say, in each place where existing witnesses to the Greek text differ in the readings they present, the translators have chosen that reading which, in their judgment, corresponds most closely to the wording of the biblical author. They have not given their preference to a single ‘best’ MS or group of MSS, as had been done in some earlier versions of the New Testament.
b. The early Pauline text
How many copies of the letter to the Romans were in circulation between AD 57 and the end of the first century cannot be known. But, from the time that the corpus Paulinum was compiled at the beginning of the second century, Romans, like each of the other Pauline letters, no longer circulated separately but as a component part of the corpus.
The question naturally arises whether some evidence may not have survived in the textual tradition of the letters which goes back to a time before the corpus. The quotations in 1 Clement (AD 96) probably represent the pre-corpus text; but nearly all the other elements in the extant textual tradition are derived from the text of the corpus. Sir Frederic Kenyon’s statistics showing the measure of agreement and disagreement between P46 and other principal MSS reveal significant variations in this regard from one letter to another; Romans, in particular, stands apart from the others—a state of affairs which Kenyon thought could best be explained if the textual tradition goes back to a time when the individual letters circulated separately.20 Professor Zuntz mentions a few examples of ‘primitive corruption’ and marginal annotation which the compiler of the corpus probably found already present in one or another of the MSS which he used, and copied into his edition.21 But the first edition of the corpus Paulinum is the archetype which textual criticism of the letter, as its primary task, must try to recover, because it is the archetype from which the common text of the second century and the main text-types of the following centuries are derived.
From the end of the second century onwards two main text-types can be distinguished for the Pauline letters—an eastern type and a western. In addition to P46 (our oldest surviving witness), early witnesses to the eastern text-type include B (the fourth-century Codex Vaticanus), Aleph (the fourth-century Codex Sinaiticus), 1739 (a tenth-century Athos minuscule) or rather the very ancient and excellent MS (no longer extant) from which its text of the thirteen Pauline letters and Hebrews was copied,22 citations in Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 180) and Origen (died AD 254), and the two main Coptic versions (Sahidic and Bohairic).23 The western text of the Pauline letters is attested chiefly by citations in Tertullian (c. AD 200), by other authorities for the Old Latin version (other patristic citations and the text of d),24 and by the common ancestor of the codices D, F and G.25 This western text goes back to the popular and rather corrupt text of the second century; the relative purity of the eastern text is due, Zuntz thinks, to the constant application to it of the editorial techniques of Alexandrian textual scholarship.26
c. Early recensions of Romans
There are a number of indications in the textual history of Romans that it circulated not only in the form in which we know it but in one or even two shorter editions. These indications appear mainly towards the end of the letter, but there are two pieces of possibly relevant evidence at the beginning.
1. The beginning of the letter. (i) Romans 1:7. In this verse the words ‘in Rome’ were absent from the text on which Origen’s commentary on Romans was based, and also, probably, from the text on which Ambrosiaster’s commentary was based (although in the MS tradition of both commentaries the basic text has been conformed to that in common use). The margins of 1739 and 190827 attest the omission of the words from Origen’s text and commentary.
The Graeco-Latin codex G, one of the western witnesses to the Pauline text, also lacks the reference to Rome in this verse, presenting the reading ‘to all who are in the love of God’ where the common text has ‘to all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints’. Other western witnesses, all of them Latin, exhibit the shorter reading of G adapted to the common text by the addition of the words ‘in Rome’; thus: ‘to all who are in Rome in the love of God’ (so d, the Vulgate codices Amiatinus, Ardmachanus and two others, Pelagius and possibly Ambrosiaster).
(ii) Romans 1:15. The words ‘who are in Rome’ are absent from G, while some of the companions of this codex show attempts to adapt this abridged form to the common text.
It looks as if the ancestor of the codices D and FG lacked ‘in Rome’ in 1:7 and 1:15 alike.28 That the omission was not exclusively western is indicated by the fact that Origen’s text also lacked ‘in Rome’ in 1:7.
2. The end of the letter. Some phenomena towards the end of the letter suggest that various recensions of it ended at different points. A suitable conclusion might have been provided by any one of the benedictions or quasi-benedictions of 15:5–6; 15:13; 15:33; 16:20b (repeated by western and Byzantine witnesses in 16:24). But the most interesting textual phenomenon at the end of the letter concerns the position of the final doxology (16:25–27 in the common text).
(i) In Amiatinus and a few other Vulgate codices the Pauline letters are supplied with ‘chapter-summaries’ (Lat. breues) taken over from a pre-Vulgate Latin version. In them Romans is divided into fifty-one ‘chapters’ or sections. For the last two of these the summaries are as follows:
50. Concerning the danger of grieving one’s brother with one’s food, and showing that the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
51. Concerning the mystery of God, which was kept in silence before the passion but has been revealed after his passion.
The summary of section 50 corresponds to the substance of 14:1–23; that of section 51 corresponds to the doxology of 16:25–27. This suggests that a shorter edition of the letter existed in which the concluding doxology followed immediately after 14:23. There are some other indications that such a shorter edition was known and used.29
(ii) The Book of Testimonies ascribed to Cyprian (died AD 258) includes a collection of biblical texts which enjoin withdrawal from heretics; this collection does not include Romans 16:17, which might have been thought an apt text for his purpose. This argument from silence, which would have little weight if it stood alone, must be taken along with other pieces of evidence.
(iii) Although Romans 15 and 16 are so full of potential anti-Marcionite ammunition,30 Tertullian nowhere quotes from these chapters in his five books Against Marcion. In the fifth book of that treatise, however (chapter 13), he does quote Romans 14:10, and says that it comes in the concluding section (Lat. clausula) of the letter.
(iv) Rufinus (c. AD 400), in his Latin abridgement of Origen’s commentary on Romans, says on 16:25–27: ‘Marcion, who introduced alterations into the evangelic and apostolic writings, removed this section completely from this letter, and not only so, but he cut out everything from that place where it is written, “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (14:23), right to the end.’ There is no reason to doubt that here Rufinus has given a straightforward rendering of Origen’s own words.
(v) In the Byzantine textual tradition the doxology of 16:25–27 comes after 14:23 and before 15:1. Origen knew of MSS which put the doxology in this position, but he also knew of others which put it after 16:24, and believed (not unnaturally) that the latter was the proper place for it. But those MSS which place the doxology between chapters 14 and 15 are probably witnesses to an edition of the letter which ended with 14:23, followed by the doxology (this truncated edition being later completed by the addition of chapters 15 and 16).
(vi) G (with some codices known to Jerome) lacks the doxology altogether. It is probable, indeed, that it was lacking in the ancestor of D and FG. Moreover, from the fact that this ancestor apparently had a western text in chapters 1–14 but a text with several peculiar readings in chapters 15 and 16, it has been inferred that behind it lay a text which came to an end with 14:23 (omitting the doxology).31 It is more than a coincidence that this is how Marcion is said to have brought the letter to an end.
(vii) A few witnesses (A P 33 104, and some Armenian codices) have the doxology both after 14:23 and again after 16:24.
(viii) In P46 the doxology comes between chapters 15 and 16. This has been regarded as evidence for an edition of Romans which came to an end at 15:33.
We thus appear to have evidence for two shorter editions of Romans—one ending at 15:33 and the other ending at 14:23 (with or without an added doxology). We also have evidence for an edition which lacked the words ‘in Rome’ in 1:7, 15; this edition may or may not have been identical with one or other of the two shorter editions just mentioned.
There is no difficulty in understanding why an edition should have circulated without chapter 16. If copies of the letter were sent to a number of churches, because of the general interest and relevance of its contents, all but one of these copies would very naturally have lacked chapter 16, which with its many personal messages would have been applicable to one church only.32
But why should an edition have circulated without chapter 15? The argument which begins with 14:1 continues into chapter 15 and leads on naturally to Paul’s personal statement in 15:15–33.33 We have, however, Origen’s testimony that Marcion omitted everything after 14:23 and brought the letter to an end at that point. Why Marcion should have done so will be apparent to anyone who looks at the series of Old Testament quotations in 15:9–12, or at the statement in 15:4 that ‘whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction’, or at the description of Christ in 15:8 as ‘a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs’. Such a concentration of material offensive to Marcion can scarcely be paralleled in the Pauline writings.
To Marcion, then, we may assign the edition which ended at 14:23.34 But such was the influence of Marcion’s edition that his text, like his disciples’ prefaces, was reproduced in greater or lesser degree in several orthodox lines of transmission, especially in western (and, more particularly, Latin) copies.35
What now can be said of the omission of the references to Rome in 1:7, 15? It might have been expected that this omission would belong to the more generalized edition of the letter which supposedly came to an end with 15:33. But in the textual history of Romans the witnesses to the omission of the Roman reference in 1:7, 15 belong to the tradition which attests the fourteen-chapter edition, not the fifteen-chapter edition. Was Marcion, then, responsible for the omission of the reference to Rome at the beginning of the letter, as well as for the omission of everything after 14:23 at the end? But why should he have struck out the twofold reference to Rome? When the Roman church repudiated Marcion and his teaching, he might have judged it unworthy to be mentioned in the text of his Apostolikon. ‘This is no more than a conjecture’,36 and against it must be set the fact (as it appears to be) that in his canon the letter retained the title ‘To the Romans’.37