CHAP. XIV.

CHAPTER XIV.

PART III. THERE remains a question, which the proposition of the destruction of the ante-diluvian earth, will naturally suggest to the mind; and which ought, therefore, not to be passed over without notice. It will be asked; if the first earth perished, what are we to understand concerning the description of the rivers of Eden, contained in verses 11, 12, 13, and 14, of the second chapter of Genesis? We cannot cut the knot of this difficulty with so little ceremony as De Luc; who, without hesitation, affirms that the rivers therein enumerated were not the present Euphrates, &c. but "certain ante-diluvian rivers, "whose names were afterwards transferred to "rivers of the new earth; as is common in colonies, where new places are called after "the names of the mother-country 1.

66

This is a question, pertaining to an entirely distinct branch of inquiry; yet it is very

'Lett. Géol. p. 327, 8.

material to the present subject, that it should PART III, be resolved here.

That this description of rivers constitutes a parenthesis, intersecting the direct thread of the history, and that it has been inserted for the purpose of illustration, is manifest upon the face of the text; but, a critical question arises upon this parenthesis, which those will best apprehend who are most conversant with ancient manuscripts and with the history of their transcriptions: viz. whether this illustrative insertion was written by the author of the history, or, whether it is not more probable that it was originally a marginal gloss, which, in process of time, became incorporated into the body of the text? To such glosses, Bishop Lowth has occasion to advert in his notes on Isaiah, and Kennicott has treated of them, more diffusely, in his dissertations on the Hebrew text; and there are few ancient authors whose writings have not, in some degree or other, suffered depravation by similar incorporations. Both the Sacred Testaments are known to have sustained such depravations, in several instances.

who

In order to illustrate this subject for those may not have had experience in this branch of investigation, I shall adduce an example of

CHAP. XIV.

CHAP. XIV.

PART III. an incorporated gloss in the New Testament, which is but little known, but which is both very important in itself, and very applicable to the case before us. It is remarkable, that Michaelis has passed over it in his criticisms on St. John's Gospel: Bishop Marsh, however, has duly remarked it in his notes on that work, and has deduced from it the conclusions which it obviously suggests.

In the Royal Library at Paris is a remnant of a very ancient Greek MS. of the New Testament, the Codex Ephremi1. This valuable relic is pronounced by Wetstein, (in whose enumeration it is marked C,) to be of the same age as the celebrated Alexandrian MS.; but, the passage which I am about to produce, will certainly not tend to diminish its: comparative antiquity. Montfaucon has given a fac-simile of the first six verses of the 5th chapter of St. John's Gospel, as they stand in this MS.; in which that portion of the evangelical history is thus read:

vol.

μετα δε ταυτα ην ἡ ἑορτη των

Ιουδαίων, και ανέβη ο Ιησούς

MICHAELIS' Introd. to the New Testament, by MARSH,

PART III.

CHAP. XIV.

When Jesus saw him
lie, and knew that, &c.

In the Greek MS., the text and the marginal sentences, though both are in the uncial character, are written by different hands; and it will be evident, from the language, and from the Itacism perceptible in the latter, that these are of a date posterior to the former. It will be equally manifest, that they were marginal notes, annexed with the design of illustrating the popular superstition under which the infirm man was waiting at the bath; but, at the same time, adopting the superstition, and averring it to be true. The original text, was free from that blemish; and the simplicity and close sequence of the recital, bear internal evidence that those marginal passages are alien to it. The superstitious clause, therefore, does not pertain to the evangelical historian, but has become incorporated into his history in the progress of transcription.

Bishop Marsh thus speaks concerning this passage: "The Codex Ephrem has many marginal notes written in uncial letters, "without accents. This proves what has been "sometimes doubted, that marginal notes were "made in the most ancient MSS., and that "this practice prevailed in the early ages of