Matt 5:44 ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν υμας

As a lasting trace of an early motivation to balance the text or to remove an apparent tautology, a few manuscripts (ℵ B f1 22 279 660* 1192 2786*) and other witnesses omit these nine words and also three words later in the verse (cf. the following note, Matt 5:44 επηρεαζοντων . . . υμας). Aland and Aland (Text, 306) think the longer form is "nothing more than an adaptation from the parallel text of Luke 6:27–28," underscored by the "variety of forms in which this occurs in the manuscript tradition."
     Erasmus (2:29), labeling the clause ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας as "added from another place," says Jerome and Chrysostom did well not to add it and wonders whether some studious person added it from Romans [12:14] on account of the expression's similarity. Bèze (1:40) says the expression ευλογειτε is not very appropriate in this place, since the Holy Spirit is not a condoner of falsehood (cf. Matt 25:34; 26:26), and suggests that the clause perhaps crept in from Luke [6:28], an action Mill (13) thinks is certain. Küster neutralizes Mill's dogmatism by charging that various witnesses omitted the various short clauses on account of the recurrence of the word υμας. Mastricht (Appendix:2–3) proposes that his canon 26 accounts for the omission: "Scribes, for the sake of conciseness, frequently omitted words which they considered superfluous or unnecessary, especially when the sense would not be disturbed or changed" (13).
     Bengel (Gnomon, 183–4) boldly states that all four clauses should be read (αγαπατε . . . ευλογειτε . . . καλως ποιειτε . . . προσευχεσθε), "although the third is almost contained in the first, and the second in the fourth by Chiasmus: on which account St Luke transposes them." He calls attention to the correspondence of αγαπησητε (5:46) with the same verb in 5:44, and ασπασησθε (5:47) with ευλογειτε in 5:44. He also indicates (Apparatus, 99) that the clauses do not derive from Luke, since the order there is different, and that homoeoteleuton would have facilitated the omissions.
     Wettstein (1:313) is persuaded by the "consensus of the manuscripts," and argues that the clauses "were omitted by those who thought that goodness could be found in love, and blessing in prayers. However, by far it has a greater emphasis if we suppose that the precept was driven home in hard fashion four times and distinctly in pieces.” Matthäi (79–80) attributes the omission in the Vulgate to Origen's influence and the scholia, and the omission of καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν υμας in some manuscripts to scribal error due to the double υμας.
     Fritzsche (247–8) is not surprised that some fathers neglected the expressions since the thought of all is encapsulated in just the first and the last, and this natural reduction would call the entire passage to a reader's memory; scribes also could have easily confused υμων with υμας and committed the mistake. He then argues that the different order in Luke is significant, since if scribes hastily recorded the words in the margin from memory but in the wrong order, others would have corrected the mistake and the majority would not have followed the arrangement that differed from Luke. He adds that the sentence without the nine words "arguably comes out rather bare," and most importantly that 5:47 looks back to the expression ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας (already mentioned by Bengel).  Kühnöl (167) and Meyer (111) follow Fritzsche.
     Robinson (in email correspondence) notes not only Luke's different order but also his use of υμιν (in the Byzantine textform) instead of Matthew's υμας, and asks, quoting Gordon Fee in another context, "Why, with regard to this matter in general, would anyone go about trying to disharmonize the Gospels?" Robinson himself then asks, "Further, even if such misharmonizing had occurred, why then did subsequent Byzantine scribes not correct the order of clauses to match the Lukan order, as well as correct the Alexandrian υμας to the Byzantine υμιν? Such issues call into serious question the claim of 'harmonizing' when such did not properly occur." Citing a journal article by J. C. O'Neill, Robinson remarks that "the normal 'editorial policies' of the Alexandrian revisers included abridgment (sometimes severe) for stylistic smoothness –– a factor that did not tend to transcend the location where such occurred, thus no necessary abridgment in parallel locations. Furthermore, the contextual reason to abridge the four clauses into two was to balance precisely the two very concise clauses in 5:43, namely, "Love your neighbor and hate your enemies."
     To summarize the reasons for inclusion: (1) most manuscripts have the precise wording; (2) the clause order and wording in Luke is different; (3) the four clauses form a chiasmus; (4) 5:46 and 5:47 look to the αγαπατε and ευλογειτε clauses, respectively; (5) some thought the clauses were either difficult or tautological; (6) homoeoteleuton error accounts for a number of variations; (7) influence from Origen or his "accurate" manuscripts, or other fathers including via the scholia; and (8) most likely, intentional abridgement to balance precisely the clauses with those of 5:43. Finally, the omission of one or another of the clauses through a combination of the above factors throughout the transmission history led to successive intermittent alterations and attempted repairs, yet the vast majority of the manuscripts preserves the precise wording of the original unharmed.

Text und Textwert #14 results:

1    ευλογειτε τους καταρω(ο)μενους υμας καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν υμας
05C1 07 017 019 021 028 030 031 032 037 038 041 042 045 047C 055 0211 0257 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 13 14 15 16 18 19 20C 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 33 34 35 36 37 38C 39 40S 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 60 61 63 65 66 67 68 70 71 72 73 75 76 77 78 80 83 84 86 89 90 98 100 105 106 107 108 109 111 112 114 116 117 119 120 122 123 124 125 126T 127 128 129 131 132 133C 136 137 138 140 141 142 143 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154C 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 167 169 170 171 173 174 175 178 179 180 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 196C 198 199 200 201 202 204 207 208 210 211 212 214 215 217 218 219 220 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233C 234 235 236 237 238 240 244 245 246 247 248 251 259 260 261 262 263 265 266 268 269 270 271 272 273 274C 275 276 277 278 280 282 283 284 285 287 288 290 291 293 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 303 304 305 310 324 329 330 331 333 334 335 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 355 358 359 360 361 363 364 365 366 367 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2182 2191 2193 2195 2199 2201 2204 2206 2213 2215 2217 2220 2221 2222 2223 2224 2229 2236 2238 2255 2260 2261 2263 2265 2266 2273 2277 2278 2280 2281 2283 2284 2287 2290S 2291 2292 2295 2296 2297 2301 2304 2307 2315 2317 2321 2322 2323 2324 2328 2352 2354 2355 2356 2362 2367 2369 2370 2371 2372 2373 2374 2375 2382 2383 2386 2387 2388 2390 2394 2396 2397 2398 2400 2404 2405 2406 2407 2411 2414 2420 2422 2426 2430 2442 2444 2446 2452 2454 2458 2460 2465 2467 2470 2472 2476 2477 2478 2479 2482 2483 2487 2489 2490 2492 2494 2496 2497 2499 2502 2503 2507 2508 2509 2511 2515 2516 2518 2520 2523 2524 2525 2528S 2530 2539 2545 2546 2550 2554 2555 2557 2561 2562 2567 2571 2578 2579 2581 2585 2586 2590 2591 2592 2598 2603 2604 2605 2606 2608S 2610 2612 2613 2614 2615 2616 2620 2622 2623 2624 2633 2635 2636 2637 2645 2646 2653 2656 2658 2660 2665 2670 2673 2676 2680 2684 2685 2687 2689 2691 2692 2693S 2694 2695 2697 2701S 2702 2703 2705 2706 2707 2709 2710 2713 2714 2715 2718 2722 2724 2726 2727 2728S 2729 2730 2734 2737 2749 2754 2756 2757 2760 2765 2766 2767 2770 2774 2775 2780 2781 2783 2786C 2787 2806 2808 2809 2812 2831 2836
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1359

1B    ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν ημας
59 372 446 1093 1213 1229 1233 2314 2521
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 9

1C    ευλογειτε τους εχθρους υμων ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν υμας
047*
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1

1D    ευλογειτε τον καταρωμενον υμας καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν υμας
979
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1

1E    ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμιν καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν υμας
05* 118S 577 585C 1204 1408 2745
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 7

1F    ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους ημας καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν υμας
784 1073
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 2

1G    ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους ημων καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν υμας
1081
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1

1H    ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν υμας
64 732 929* 1038 1263 1797
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 6

1I    ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσουσιν υμας
1322*
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1

1J    ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας καλως ποιειτε τοις μισησουσιν υμας
1451
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1

1K    ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας καλως ποιειτε τους μισουντας υμας
2 126L 195 289 525 724 750 872 956 1239 1303 1502 1640 1802 2267 2488 2559S 2708
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 18

1L    ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας και καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν υμας
17C
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1

2    Omit
01 03 1 22 205 209 279 660* 1192 1582* 2533 2786*
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 12

3    ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας καλως ποιειτε
1578
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1

4    ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας
17* 20* 31 38* 58 113 133* 135S 144 154* 193 196* 213 243 274* 306 354 392 435 482 519 552 571 574 590 596 723 733 737 759 799* 842 851 854 930 962 1071 1113 1137 1208 1273 1288 1291 1299 1302 1310S 1534 1594 1597 1642 1675 1780 1808* 2100 2207 2381 2577 2583 2634 2666 2735 2810
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 62

5    ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας και διωκοντας υμας
1325*
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1

6    καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν υμας
11 130 233* 267 395 780 933 1230 1242* 1260 1449 2551 2650 2788
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 14

7    ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας και διωκοντας υμας καλως ποιειτε τους μισουντας υμας
1325C
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1

8    καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν υμας ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας
134 286 740 1123 1221 1562* 2439 2471 2510
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 9

8B    καλως ποιειτε τοις μισουσιν ημας ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας
716
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1

9    ευλογειτε τοις μισουσιν υμας
728
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1

10    ευλογειτε τους καταρωμενους υμας καλως
555
NUMBER OF WITNESSES: 1