3.

In textual criticism Chrysostom does not afford us the help that might be expected from the extent of his labors. Origen is incomparably more useful to the textual critic. Even in citing the LXX. many inaccuracies occur, and the Hebrew text is ignored, except in a few cases where doctrinal discussion had arisen. ¹

As Westcott and Hort have shown, ² the Syrian text of the New Testament had become dominant in the Eastern church about A.D. 350. It held in the time of Chrysostom very much the same position afterwards allowed to the received text during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Accordingly we find few indications of any critical investigations of the text, and the variations from the Syrian text in the Homilies are neither numerous nor important. Yet the differences from the received text of our day are worth noticing. ³ In all such matters, however, there enter several elements of uncertainty, combining to subtract from the value of the Homilies or critical purposes. ⁴ In the case of Chrysostom we know that the Homilies were taken down by others. Hence we are not sure how accurately the preacher made his citations, how correctly they were reported, nor how much of change has been made by copyists in the interest of conformity to the text prevalent at the time of transcription. Quite frequently the same passage occurs in two forms within the limits of the same Homily. The labors of Mr. Field on the Greek text of Chrysostom show how much remains to be done before we can cite this Father as a trustworthy witness in regard to the minor variations of the New Testament text. Fortunately Tischendorf, who had access to a very ancient codex of the Homilies on Matthew, ⁵ has given the results of his collation in his painstaking way. As this codex was not included in the apparatus criticus of Mr. Field, the supplementary value of Tischendorf's citations is increased.

Some peculiar readings occur in the Homilies on Matthew; the most remarkable is, however, a reading of Luke ix. 31. In Homily LVI. 3 (p. 346 of this volume), Chrysostom expressly reads dxan for exodon, commenting upon the word. It seems altogether probable that there was no such reading prevalent in his day, but that the word dx, which stands immediately before in Luke ix. 31, was accidentally substituted for exodon. This might happen from a slip of the memory on the part of Chrysostom, or some scribe might have made the blunder in an isolated copy used by the preacher. In other respects Chrysostom is a witness for the prevalence of the Antiochian or Syrian text, from which our received text has descended. He ignores the pericope of the woman taken in adultery (John vii. 53, viii. 11), as do all the Greek Fathers before the eighth century.

The minor variations do not fully appear in the Oxford translation, owing to the habit of using the text of the Authorized Version, even when its differences from the text of Chrysostom were quite obvious. Accordingly the emendations of the Revised Version have been given, without comment, in the additional foot-notes to this volume, wherever that Version represents more accurately the readings in the Homilies.