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The Provenance of the Interpolator in the ‘Western’ Text of Acts and of Acts Itself

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Extract

First of all, the title of this paper needs justification. Why should we assume that anyone ever made interpolations in the text of Acts? Ropes, who is still the most considerable authority on this subject, spoke of the ‘Western’ text all through his work on the Text of Acts in The Beginnings of Christianity as if it gave evidence of the work of a reviser of the text, not of an interpolator, and many scholars before him had the same opinion. On the other hand, very recent scholarship has tended to the opposite view, that it is wrong to hold that ‘Western’ readings in the New Testament necessarily represent a single continuous revision done at one particular moment in the history of the text. Professor G. D. Kilpatrick, for instance, in a recent article suggests that every reading in Acts has to be considered on its merits, independently of speculation about whether it represents a revision or a recension or a ‘good’ MS tradition. He believes that the ‘Western’ readings often do not represent a revision or recension, but are single examples of original, correct readings preserved in this particular MS tradition. In his view, word order, orthography, and grammatical, syntactical and philological considerations applied de novo to each reading should be paramount in attempting to discover correct readings. The wisdom of this approach has been confirmed by the careful scholarship applied to the subject by M. Wilcox in his book The Semitisms of Acts (1965).

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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1966

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References

page 211 note 1 In determining the text of the ‘Western’ tradition in Acts this essay has followed A. C. Clark's text which he printed in his book The Acts of the Apostles (1933). In this edition he printed the ‘Western’ peculiarities in the text in black type; acceptance of Clark's text does not of course imply belief in the existence of his ‘Z Text’ as the original text of Acts. When this article refers to the ‘B Text’ or ‘the text of the great uncials’, it means to use these terms as a convenient abbreviation for the text of Acts as given in Nestle and Kilpatrick's text of the New Testament (2nd edn, 1958).Google Scholar

page 211 note 2 Kilpatrick, G. D., ‘An Eclectic Study of the Text of Acts’, in Biblical and Patristic Studies in Memory of R. P. Casey, ed. Birdsall, J. N. and Thomson, R. W. (1963), pp. 6477.Google Scholar

page 212 note 1 The Text of Acts, by J. H. Ropes (vol. iii of part i of Foakes-Jackson and Lake, The Beginnings of Christianity (1926), pp. ccxxxviii–ccxxxix). Reproduced in Klijn, A. F. J., A Survey of Researches into the Western Text of the Gospels and Acts (1949), p. 76.Google Scholar

page 212 note 2 Ropes, , op. cit. pp. ccxliiiccxliv.Google Scholar Ropes also adduces here xiii. 33 πρώΤῳ ψαλμῷ, read by the ‘Western’ tradition, whereas B has δενΤέρῳ. But this may be regarded as an original reading also.

page 212 note 3 These examples are reproduced by Klijn, from Ramsay, op. cit. pp. 1921.Google Scholar

page 212 note 4 One of the most commonly quoted examples of an apparently original reading in the ‘Western’ tradition is at Acts xx. 4, where Δоυβ(ε)ριος is attached to the name Gaius. Doberus is a town in Macedonia south-west of Philippi. But against this is the argument that the men who accompanied Paul to Jerusalem probably represented different areas of the Church, in which case Aristarchus and Secundus from Thessalonica would represent the Church in Macedonia, and Gaius and Timothy the Church in Lycaonia (Derbe). Timothy certainly came from Lystra or Iconium (xvi. i, 2).Google Scholar

page 213 note 1 Dibelius, M., Studies in the Acts of the Apostles (1956), pp. 85–6.Google Scholar

page 213 note 1 Cf. Klijn, , op. cit. p. 19.Google Scholar

page 217 note 1 Ropes, , op. cit. pp. ccxxiiccxxiii.Google Scholar

page 217 note 2 Klijn, , op. cit. p. 74.Google Scholar

page 217 note 3 Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 3. 14. i. It is generally agreed that the Latin translator of Irenaeus is an unusually faithful one, though the date of the translation is disputed. See Klijn, , op. cit. pp. 83–4.Google Scholar

page 217 note 4 Harris, J. Rendel, Four Lectures on the Western Text of the New Testament (1894), pp. 64–6.Google Scholar

page 217 note 5 Ropes, , op. cit. pp. clxxxviiclxxxviii.Google Scholar

page 217 note 6 Ibid. pp. ccxxiii–ccxxiv.

page 218 note 1 Epp, E. J. has argued in an article entitled ‘The “Ignorance-Motif” in Acts and Anti-Judaic tendencies in Codex Bezae’ (Harvard Theological Review, LV (1962), 5162) for an anti-Jewish motive in the interpolator's work. His arguments are slight, but they may convince some.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 218 note 2 There does not seem to be any substance in the theory that this writer's references to the Holy Spirit betray Montanist sympathies.Google Scholar

page 219 note 1 Adv. Haer. 1. 3. For a summary of the evidence concerning the origins of Christianity in Alexandria see Hanson, R. P. C., Tradition in the Early Church (1962), pp. 166–7.Google Scholar

page 219 note 2 Latin tr. statum assumens divinum, which Clark, A. C., loc. cit., in his edition of Acts ventures to render as σχῆμα ἒνθεον άναλαβών, but these words appear to be purely Clark's conjecture.Google Scholar

page 219 note 3 Crehan, J. H. had independently set out much of the evidence to support this point given below, with some additions, in ‘Peter According to the D-Text of Acts’ (Theological Studies xviii, no. 4 (12. 1957), 596603).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 220 note 1 Justin, Martyr, Apology i. 26. 2, 3; 56. i,2; Dialogue 120. 6.Google Scholar

page 220 note 2 I Clement 5. I–7.Google Scholar

page 220 note 3 Romans 4. I–3.Google Scholar

page 221 note 1 Adv. Haer. 3. 3. I.Google Scholar

page 221 note 2 Adversus Marcionem 4. 5. i; De Praescriptione Haereticorum 36. 2. 3; Scorpiace 14. 3.Google Scholar

page 221 note 3 Eusebius, H.E. 2. 25. 5, 6.Google Scholar

page 222 note 1 The very curious addition at xi. 28 ἧν δέ πολλή άγαλλίαις συνεστραμμέων δέ ήμών, remains an enigma which does not seem to cast light on our investigation. That it is an addition and not original seems certain because of its use of the genitive absolute construction which is typical of additions in the ‘Western’ text and is not a Lucan characteristic. The least improbable suggestion to account for it is that the interpolator wanted to associate Lucius of Cyrene (who is mentioned in xiii. 1 as among the ‘prophets and teachers’ at Antioch) with the author of the ‘we’ passages (whose significance was noted as early as Irenaeus), and therefore in effect to identify Luke as the author of Acts.Google Scholar

page 222 note 2 383, 614, Codex Gigas and Codex Perpinianus, the Book of Armagh, Codex Parisinus 343, Codex Wernigerodensis, the Philoxenian Syriac and the Sahidic Vulgate version.Google Scholar

page 222 note 3 The Acts of the Apostles, pp. 386–8.Google Scholar

page 222 note 4 Sherwin-White, A. N., Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (1963), pp. 108–10.Google Scholar

page 223 note 1 I owe the following information on this subject to the kindness of my colleagues, Mr G. R. Watson and Mr W. R. Chalmers, who are on the staff of the Department of Classics of the University of Nottingham.Google Scholar

page 223 note 2 By O'Neill, J. C., The Theology of Acts in its Historical Setting (1961).Google Scholar

page 223 note 3 Perhaps it is worth noting that Blass held the theory that the ‘Western’ text of Acts originated in Rome; but he believed that this text represented an earlier rough draft of Acts made by Luke himself.Google Scholar

page 224 note 1 Cadbury, H. J., The Making of Luke-Acts, pp. 241–2 and The Book of Acts in History, p. 60; J. Dupont, The Sources of Acts, p. 160.Google Scholar

page 228 note 1 I Clement 5. 7.Google Scholar

page 228 note 2 Romans 4. 1–3.Google Scholar

page 228 note 3 Eusebius, H.E. 2. 25. 5, 6.Google Scholar

page 228 note 4 Crehan, J. H. has independently advanced some interesting arguments to support this suggestion (Studia Evangelica ii (ed. Cross, F. L., Berlin, 1964), pp. 354–8).Google Scholar