agency, one advantage however results, namely, the acknowledgment thereby made that in their opinion this solemn event cannot be satisfactorily explained by any other cause; neither by the principal, nor the accessory sufferings of crucifixion,-by an extraordinary degree of weakness original or acquired,-nor by the wound inflicted with the soldier's spear;-and this acknowledgment is the more valuable in the case of several of the earlier writers, because they lived in times when all the circumstances attending crucifixion in general, and that of Christ in particular, must have been perfectly known. So much the more remarkable is the fact that certain manuscripts of the Greek New Testament, particularly the Vatican, and the Ephrem, with some others of minor note, contain a various reading which seems to affirm the cause last mentioned, namely, the wound with the soldier's spear; and that a recent and talented author, the late Mr. Granville Penn,* has zealously adopted this reading, which it will be the object of the following observations to show is spurious, and unworthy of regard. It occurs as an additional clause to Matt. chap. 27, v. 48, 49. after the statement that a little before his death Christ uttered the cry,"Eloi! Eloi! lama sabachthani ?"—which some of the by-standers erroneously supposed to be an invocation of the prophet Elijah. In order to do justice to the subject, the original passage, as it stands in the Vatican manuscript, is here subjoined, together with Mr. Penn's translation.-Matt. chap. 27, v. 48. Kai evОéws Spaμàv εὐθέως δραμὼν εἷς ἐξ αὐτῶν, καὶ λαβὼν σπόγγον, πλήσας τε ὄξους, καὶ περιθεὶς καλάμῳ, ἐπότιζεν αὐτον: 49. οἱ δὲ λοιποὶ ἔλεγον, Αφες, ἴδωμεν εἰ ἔρχεται Ἠλίας σώσων αὐτόν: ἄλλος δὲ, λαβὼν λόγχην, ἔνυξεν αὐτοῦ τὴν πλευρὰν, καὶ ἐξῆλθεν ὕδωρ καὶ

*Granville Penn, The Book of the New Covenant of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ;-Annotations to the Book of the New Covenant, with an Expository Preface, etc.

αἷμα. 50. Ο δὲ Ἰησοῦς, πάλιν κράξας φωνη μεγάλη, ἀφῆκε TÒ пνεvμа. 48. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave it him to drink: 49. the rest said, Let him alone; let us see whether Elijah will come to save him: 50. but another, taking a spear, pierced his side; and there came forth water and blood: and Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, expired."-Mr. Penn supposes this clause to have been expunged from the ancient copies of Matthew's gospel through the influence of Origen. His principal, if not his only reasons for regarding it as an authentic portion of Scripture, are its insertion in the Vatican and Ephrem manuscripts, and its adoption by Chrysostom. The high value which he attaches to it is evinced by the ensuing remarks.-"The restoration of this verse to its due place in the Gospel is the most important circumstance of this Revision;”—and again,—“The recovery of this important record, possibly reserved with a view to rouse and quicken the languor of the Christian Church in this its last age, and its restoration to the evangelical text, is well calculated to fan the embers of Christian devotion, and to cause them to revive with a flame answering to that with which it shone at the first,” Notwithstanding so high a eulogium, it will be easy to prove that this clause, excluded by almost all the ancient manuscripts, versions, and fathers, rejected by the principal critics and editors of the Greek New Testament, and stamped with internal marks of inconsistency and falsehood, is an unwarrantable interpolation in Matthew's gospel of words borrowed from that of St. John. In opposition to the weight of adverse evidence on this point, the authorities adduced by Mr. Penn are quite insufficient. That of Chrysostom he himself disregards, in reference to

* Granville Penn, Annotations to the Book of the New Covenant, etc., pp., 176, 184.

a closely-connected passage, and in the present case it is. scarcely available; for Chrysostom represents the spearwound as having been inflicted on the body of Christ when dead, and declares that he laid down his life by his own power. The Ephrem manuscript is probably little more than a duplicate of the Vatican, and for the extraordinary and exclusive deference paid by Mr. Penn to the Roman document no just reason can be assigned. To ascertain the precise age of a manuscript is not a very easy task; but granting that the Vatican is one of the oldest now extant, it by no means follows that all junior manuscripts, some of which must be of nearly equal antiquity, are either derived from it, or of inferior authority. Granting that this clause was known in the fourth century, there is no proof that it existed in the first copies of Matthew's gospel, or that it was expunged by Origen. That distinguished author testifies that in his time, and doubtless long before, the Scriptures of the New Testament presented many various readings, which he judiciously refers to three different sources; namely, the negligence of transcribers, the presumption of heretics, and the officiousness of critics.* To the last of these classes may reasonably be ascribed several of those families, as they have been termed, of manuscripts, which, while agreeing in all essential points, differ considerably with respect to style and diction, in consequence of the simple and Oriental phraseology of the original writings having been, as it seems, variously modified and retouched, to suit the taste of those for whose use they were successively transcribed. That the text of the Vatican manuscript was thus modified, at least in the New Testament, will plainly appear to any competent inquirer who will carefully and candidly examine its peculiar readings. Were such interference with Scripture ever admissible, many of these readings * Lardner (Dr. Nathaniel), Works, vol. ii. pp. 522, 523.

might, in reference to expression, be deemed improvements; but, as might naturally have been expected, when the editor had once engaged in this critical career, he was induced to proceed further than at first perhaps he intended; and not content with correcting the style of the sacred original, presumed in some instances to alter its matter. Thus, for example, he has expunged the clause in Luke, chap. 22, v. 43, 44. which describes the agony and bloody sweat of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane; and has inserted after Matt. chap. 27, v. 49, the clause now under consideration, which attributes the death of Christ on the cross to the wound inflicted by the soldier's spear. In both these alterations, as well as in most other cases, he is implicitly followed by Mr. Penn, who gladly cites the authority of Chrysostom in support of the latter clause, but apparently forgets that the same authority confirms the former one which, in deference to the Vatican manuscript, he himself rejects; and on which this prince of interpreters, as he is styled by Dr. Isaac Barrow and Mr. Penn, makes the following apposite remark:-"Lest heretics should say that [Christ] pretended agony, his sweat was as clots of blood, and an angel appeared strengthening him, and [he showed] many other infallible signs of fear, lest any one should say that [his] words were feigned."* -After stating that this clause was acknowledged as authentic by Justin Martyr and Tatian, in the second century, as well as by other early authors, Dr. Lardner adds that it—“was wanting in some ancient copies, as we learn from Hilary, Jerome, and Photius, which last intimates that the omission of this text was owing to some Syrians. Mill thinks they must have been of the sect of the Jacobites; and Dr. Assemann has particularly observed that this text is quoted by Ephrem the Syrian. Epiphanius likewise says that these two verses * Joannes Chrysostomus, Opera, vol. vii. p. 791.

were in the ancient copies, before they were corrected and altered by some over-nice Catholics who did not well understand them."*-With the exception of the Alexandrian manuscript, which likewise omits it, this clause is accordingly retained by almost all the ancient editors, critics, and commentators of the New Testament, and is further supported by a well-known passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews, chap. 5, v. 7-10, where, although the sacred writer does not minutely describe the scene in the garden of Gethsemane, he evidently alludes to it in a manner exactly corresponding to the narrative of Luke, with which the statements of Paul generally present a very close and striking coincidence. Speaking of the sufferings of Christ, the apostle remarks that," having in the days of his flesh offered prayers and supplications, [accompanied] with tears and loud cries, to him who was able to save him from death, and having been heard on account of his pious fear, although he was a son, he learned obedience from his sufferings; and when [at length] perfected, became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him." —This allusion, which intimates that previously to his crucifixion Christ piously endured a degree of mental agony which threatened his life, but from which he was for the time delivered by divine succor, in answer to his intense and urgent prayers, furnishes a powerful confirmation, were any wanting, of that important passage in Luke's gospel which the Vatican manuscript has improperly dropped, while with equal impropriety it has admitted into the gospel of Matthew a spurious passage, which disfigures and contradicts the scriptural narrative. The in

* Lardner, vol. ii. pp. 425, 426.

In consequence of mistaking the golden censer,-vμiaтhpiov,-for the golden altar,-volaσThpiov,-the same manuscript has transferred the clause respecting it in Heb. chap. 9, from the fourth to the second This transposition, cited by Mr. Penn as a triumphant proof of

verse.