Synoptica XXXI - The Beatitudes per Codex Bezae ("D")

So far there has been an elephant in the room, about which we have not spoken. If those early Christians (whether of Antioch or some other place) translated Matthew's gospel from Hebrew into an Old Latin version and an Old Syriac version, they must have also produced an Old Greek version. Indeed they did, and its best surviving representative is Codex Bezae Cantabrigensis, usually represented as "D." It is a fifth-century manuscript on vellum, but it certainly represents a text type that is far older, apparently approximately coeval with "k" and "Syr-s," with both of which it has many commonalities. Codex Bezae has all four Gospels and Acts, in both Greek and Latin, but the Latin, which is of the Old Latin type, is not a translation of the Greek, and is of far less interest than the Greek. All three manuscripts, "k," "D," and "Syr-s," are representatives of the "Western" or "Syro-Latin" type of text.

So now I would like to show a translation of the Beatitudes as they exist on the Greek side of Codex Bezae ("D"):


Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peaceful, for they shall be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for justice's sake, for theirs shall be the kingdom of the heavens.

Blessed are you when they persecute and insult you and say all evil against you for justice's sake.

Rejoice and be glad for your abundant reward in heaven, for thus did they persecute the prophets who were before you.


And now, following the example of the table in my Synoptica XXX article, I would like to represent these Beatitudes of "D" diagrammatically, for easy comparison:


Bezae ("D")

poor in spirit
meek
mourn
hunger&thirst
merciful
pure/heart
peaceful
persecuted
you persecuted
rejoice-they-pr-b4u


As we can see, the order of "meek" and "weep/mourn" is inverted, as it also was in the Old Latin, represented here by "k," and as it still is in the Vulgate. But the innovation "mourn," of Syr-s, instead of the "weep" of all earlier versions (the "wait" of Shem-Tob is a scribal error due to the similarity of two Hebrew words, "wait" and "weep") has been accepted. We see also "peaceful," which is correct, instead of the "Syr-s" innovation "peacemakers."

We see, then that Codex Bezae, "D," is a mixed text, showing influences of both the Old Latin and the Old Syriac textual types. This Old Greek version, though, was not the model for the Canonical Greek texts. That model and translation source was the Old Syriac version, here represented by "Syr-s," as shown in Synoptica XXX.

While the Old Syriac and the Canonical Greek are extremely similar in the Beatitudes, there is a lot of diversity between the two textual types overall. This may have been due to a last round of revision that was afforded by the new translation. Such late revisions would then explain the suppression of the Old Latin and Old Syriac texts, to the extent that only two examples of the latter, one of which is a palimpsest, have survived.

Faced with a confusing diversity of readings, it is easy to see why the authorities of the institutional Church would have wanted to make a fresh start, Since the Church in the East has always maintained that their Syriac, being (except for dialectal differences) the language that Jesus would have spoken, is the most authentic, the Old Syriac would have been an obvious basis for the new translation into Greek. Since the new Greek version was not the same as the previous versions, the old had to be suppressed. This suppression was aided by the Vulgate, to replace the Old Latin, and the Peshitta, to replace the Old Syriac. All previous textual development was thus obscured.

Eventually the claim that the Gospels were originally written in Greek, and that the canonical Greek textual tradition is the oldest and original one, became universal. That any scholar accepts that claim today is absolutely stupefying.

Text Copyright © 2020 by Donald C. Traxler aka Donald Jacobson Traxler.