Matt 5:22 εικη

Only eight Greek manuscripts from before the 13th century omit εικη (p64 ℵ* B Ω 135 137* 364 371*), which Metzger (13) nevertheless dismisses with a single sentence: "Although the reading with εικη is widespread from the second century onwards, it is much more likely that the word was added by copyists in order to soften the rigor of the precept, than omitted as unnecessary."

Metzger's statement mirrors that of Erasmus (2:25–26), who after invoking the authority of Jerome who said that it was "not found in the old and trustworthy exemplars" states, "And it appears that it was added by some impudent person who wanted, as it were, to mitigate that which in general appeared to be a rather hard saying." Bèze (1:31) offers no reasons but assumes the authenticity of εικη: "Therefore not all anger is to be condemned, such as that kind which is commended in the name of zeal and also that which the Peripatetic philosophers not insincerely call 'the crag of fortitude': but in the end what is censured is that [anger] which is either unjust or immoderate (Eph 4:26)." Grotius (1:117) likewise concurs: "The anger which has the best justification is that which is derived from the indignation of the offended Divine, namely, that of which kind Christ exhibited in Mark 3:5." Mill (12) boldly states that "there is no reason why the expression εικη should have been omitted" (emphasis mine), and that although it was admitted into the text from the margin of some manuscript to soften what was thought to be a rather hard saying, it nevertheless is "ancient" because "it entered the manuscripts basically from apostolic times." Whitby (Examen, 108–9) responds to the notion that εικη was added from the margin of some manuscripts thus: "Indeed I favor very little this kind of reasoning, neither do I easily believe that something uncustomary could have crept into the text that was publicly recited in the Churches of Christianity without a rather weighty cause which I wholly fail to discover in this place." He nevertheless does agree with a certain sentiment of Mill, namely, that "indeed no one would have omitted the expression on purpose; however, it could have been omitted from the negligence of scribes, since it is generally admitted that such occurred very often in other places." Whitby (Paraphrase, 5:72–3) rightly judges that Justin's citation (ος δ αν οργισθη, ενοχος εστιν εις το πυρ) cannot be considered as evidence against εικη, since it is "only a brief recapitulation of the whole: and you may as well argue, that neither Raca nor μωρε was in that verse, as that εικη was not there." Mastricht (Appendix:2) comments in favor of the word: "Sense does not escape the expression should the passage be alleviated or explained rightly; for 'anger' passion is natural to man, and if it is controlled, he does not sin in his behavior. Cf. Eph 4:26 where it says 'without a cause' in certain Latin manuscripts." Bengel (Apparatus, 98; Gnomon, 174) defends the omission and likewise mentions no reason why εικη, if original, might have been omitted.

The primary patristic comments are conveniently quoted in Wettstein (1:296–7). Jerome (Commentariorum in Matthaeum) at Matt 5:22: "In certain manuscripts 'without a cause' [sina causa] is added. As for the rest, in the true ones the sentence is definite, and anger is completely taken away, with the Scripture saying, 'He who is angry with his brother.' For if we are commanded to offer the other cheek to the one striking us, and to love our enemies, and to pray for those who persecute us, every occasion for anger is removed. Therefore 'without a cause' must be erased, since the anger of man does not perform the righteousness of God." Jerome (Commentariorum in Epistulam ad Ephesios) at Eph 4:31: "'Without a cause' was added in vain, for we are not permitted to be angry even with a cause." Jerome (Adversus Pelagianos 2): "But 'without a cause' was not added in most old manuscripts with the result of course that we should not be angry even for any reason." Augustine (Retractationum 1.19): "The Greek manuscripts do not have 'without a cause,' as placed here, although the sense itself is the same." John Cassian (De institutis coenobiorum 8.20): "'Without a cause' is superfluous and was added by those who did not at all think that anger should be excluded in the case of just causes, since certainly no one, however provoked without reason, says that he is angry without a cause. Therefore it appears that it was added by those who did not understand the intention of Scripture to cut off the fuel of voluntary anger by all means and to leave no occasion at all for indignation, lest, when we are commanded to be angry with justification, even without justification an occasion is provided for us to become angry."

Wettstein (1:296–7) observes that Augustine's comment that the Greek copies did not have "without a cause" is uncritical since he was merely copying Jerome, and Jerome was speaking to the situation of the Latin manuscripts and not of the Greek. Against Jerome's theological reason for omitting εικη, Wettstein responds that it is "rather light," for "it is just as much that the Legislator can command that we take off natural anger as that we cut off all anger; which is why anger is so often spoken of, being attributed so many times to God, and to Christ in Mark 3:5. Paul certainly in Eph 4:26 does not forbid us to be angry, but rather wants us to be so angry that we do not sin. . . . Consequently, the sole authority of Jerome could not induce us to attempt to change anything whatsoever against the consensus of the Greek and Latin fathers and versions."

Matthäi (68–9) judges that εικη was removed "on the authority of certain interpreters," and calls attention to this passage's Greek scholium which is entitled "The practice of the law" and the origin of which he connects with Origen: "But others say that εικη was added by some in vain. Wherefore one must not be angry at all. For how is a place left open for some to be angry when we are commanded to love even our enemies?" The verbal similarities ("almost word for word") between this scholium and Jerome's quotations led Matthäi to use violent language: "Jerome . . . judged that εικη should be erased. Why? Of course, because it was omitted by Origen, whom he imitated like a slave, but also whose commentaries and other written works he fraudulently and criminally commends in place of the manuscripts of the New Testament."

Griesbach (1:46–50) boldly introduces a more mature argument for the authenticity of εικη: "We have no doubt that it was omitted on purpose. For so rigid was the teaching on behavior among most of the teachers of the ancient church that they supposed that not only 'to be angry without a cause' but also all anger whatsoever was to be prohibited under Christian law. One of them supposed that the εικη, as if impeding the zeal of Christian perfection and being less suitable to our most holy teacher, had been inserted into the text by those who were wishing to reach heaven by a more favorable way. Therefore he erased it by dots above or below in his own manuscript. He was followed afterwards by others who were influenced by the same prejudiced opinions when coming across the verse." Griesbach concedes that the variation already existed in Origen's time, but that Origen approved of the shorter reading, partly for theological reasons, partly also perhaps because εικη seemed superfluous. He also notes that the witnesses against εικη "are refuted by other equally old and weighty manuscripts originating from the same families," not to mention the manuscripts that even Jerome and Augustine confessed to contain it, including "all other Greek manuscripts (Alexandrian, Western, and Byzantine) . . . . And so εικη is victorious both by the multitude and, which is greater, by the weightiness of the witnesses. . . . But yet in this kind of reading, where integrity of judgment is very easily corrupted by comments of theological opinions, we very willingly concede that one cannot assign so much weight to the allegations of the fathers as he can to them in places of a different kind." He continues, "What pertains to the internal importance of probability, everyone who is acquainted with the spirit of the first centuries and the character of the earlier fathers will grant to us that there were by far more incentives present for the word εικη to have been deleted than added." Moreover, after reviewing the statements of Jerome and John Cassian, Griesbach observes, "Jerome attributes so much to reasons of this kind that when he was observing that manuscripts disagreed among themselves he boldly (see his comment in that place) pronounced: 'Therefore "without a cause" ought to be scratched off!' This because he considered it so wrong that not long before he seriously asked someone whether any prudent man would bring together documentation of some importance that would be of such critical understanding to the faith [as this passage without εικη]."

Kühnöl (143–4) defends the expression, while Bloomfield (Annotations, 4–5) says the problem in his mind remains "an open question." Scrivener (Six Lectures, 119–22) deals with the passage at length, calling Jerome Origen's "follower" and the later versions that omit εικη "distinctly traceable to the influence of Origen over Jerome's mind." Scrivener, like Griesbach, compares the motive for the omission here with that for the omission of "falsely" (ψευδομενοι) in 5:11 by D and some Latin manuscripts. He continues, "We will not hesitate to say that on the whole external evidence preponderates in favour of the retention of 'without cause.' It is the earlier, fuller, less equivocal."

Whitney (1:64–5) rightly explains that anger is "a feeling perfectly compatible with a holy, sinless frame of mind," and, considering Mark 3:5 and Eph 4:26, that there is "a holy anger as well as one that is sinful; the former awakened by a just provocation, being a righteous indignation, while the latter is without just ground, and is to be condemned. . . . Εικη seems to have been stricken out of the text under a misapprehension of the true meaning of οργιζομενος," for if one gives to οργιζομενος "the stronger sense of cherishing angry feelings or harboring a wrathful, malicious purpose, of course the bracketed words are not only superfluous, but altogether inappropriate. But this is a sense which the word hardly admits." Whitney's concluding sentence well summarizes transmissional probabilities: "The false reading of these manuscripts was evidently confined within comparatively narrow limits, and soon disappeared, the offensive word being everywhere recognized as genuine."

To summarize: (1) at least 1449 Greek manuscripts have εικη, including the Old Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and others, and many church fathers; (2) the word was offensive to some, like Jerome, a circumstance that easily could have occasioned its removal; (3) a misapprehension of οργιζομενος to mean malicious hatred, which is always sinful (cf. Matt 5:44, and Jesus' correspondence of anger and hatred in 5:21–22), could have caused some to omit the word as superfluous; (4) εικη could have been omitted accidentally, either from the sheer brevity of the word, from parablepsis error (ε . . . ε), or both. For a brief modern treatment of the passage, see David Alan Black ("Jesus on Anger: The Text of Matthew 5:22a Revisited," Novum Testamentum 30:1 [1988]: 1–8).

Text und Textwert #13 results:

1    αυτου εικη
01C2 05 07 017 019 021 028 030 031 032 036 037 038 041 042 047 055 0211 0233 0257 0287 1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 43 44 45 46 47 49 51 52 53 54 55 57 58 59 60 61 63 64 65 66 67 68 70 71 72 74 75 76 77 78 80 83 84 86 89 90 98 100 105 107 108 111 112 113 116 117 118 119 120 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 136 137C 138 140 141 142 143 144 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 160 161 162 163 164 167 169 170 171 174 175 178C 179 180 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 199 200 201 202 204 205 207 208 209 210 212 213 214 215 217 218 219 220 224 225 226 227C 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 240 243 244 245 246 247 248 251 259 260 261 262 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277C 278 279 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 293 296 297 298 299 300 301 303 304 305 306 310 324 329 330 331 333 334 335 343 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 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2585 2590 2591 2592 2598 2603 2604 2605 2606 2608 2610 2612C 2613 2614 2615 2616 2620 2622 2623 2624 2633 2635 2636 2637 2645 2646 2650 2653 2656 2658 2660 2665 2670 2676 2680 2684 2685 2687 2689 2691 2692 2693 2694 2695 2697 2701 2702 2703 2705 2707 2708 2709 2710 2713 2714 2715 2718 2722 2724 2726 2727 2728 2729 2730 2734 2735 2745 2749 2754 2756 2757 2760 2765 2766 2767 2770 2774 2775 2779 2780 2781 2783 2786 2787 2788 2806 2808 2809 2810 2812 2826 2831 2835 2836
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1437

1B    αυτω εικη
165 1118 1187 1609 1643
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 5

1C    αυτου {οργιζομενος} εικη
939
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1

2    αυτου
P64 01* 03 045 48 73 109 135S 137* 198 263 364 371* 372 500 663 782 784 1001 1272 1356 2263 2283 2397 2405 2430S 2706 2737
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 28

3    εικη
5 388* 412 732 938* 1693
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 6

U1 Homoeoteleuton: τη κρισει (5:21) [... τη κρισει (5:22)]
173 178* 211 227* 277* 295 344 389 485* 522 544 546 591 677* 805 1009 1015 1172* 1178* 1280* 1357* 1393* 1556* 1623* 1808* 2381 2516 2673
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 28

U2    Homoeoteleuton: τω αδελφω αυτου [... τω αδελφω αυτου]
1312
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1