Matt 6:18 κρυπτω . . . κρυπτω

Very few witnesses (ℵ B [D] f1 pc) twice have κρυφαιω instead of κρυπτω, as in most (including E G K L M S U V W Γ Δ Θ Π Σ Φ Ω 0233 0250 [Byz 1500+ mss] f13 33. 565. 892. 1424). Griesbach's explanation (Commentarius, 1:73–4) is classic: "Κρυφαιω should not at all be spurned. For this form of the word is not used in the New Testament, but it occurs several times among the Greek translators of the Old Testament. The Westerns, less meticulous in these things, preserved the rarer form; the Alexandrians along with the Byzantines substituted the more familiar [form], which in this very chapter had preceeded four times in vss. 4 and 6 and, having implanted itself in the memory of scribes, began to adhere to this place." Von Soden (1:1014) similarly explains, "As the difference from 6:4, 6 was hard to understand for a scribe, who was much more inclined toward assimilation, so the agreement of ℵ-B with documents completely unrelated to this archetype necessitates the admission of κρυφαιω into a respected class, thus in H [=Egyptian] or I [Jerusalem]."
     The reason for hesitation in accepting the rarer κρυφαιω is primarily methodological but also based on the corresponding internal consideration that the κρυπτ- form is demonstrably Matthean (5:14; 6:4 [twice], 6 [twice]; 10:26; 11:25; 13:33, 35, 44 [twice]; 25:18, 25; Mark's sole instance is in 4:22), whereas the κρυφ- form is otherwise unattested in Matthew (but does occur in Mark, also in 4:22). To quote Hort (2:34–5 [§43]):

[T]he difference between isolated judgements and combined judgements is vital. In the one case any misapprehension of the immediate evidence . . . tells in full force upon the solitary process by which one reading is selected from the rest for adoption, and there is no room for rectification. In the other case the selection is suggested by the result of a large generalisation about the documents . . . [and] rests on too broad a foundation of provisional judgements, at once confirming and correcting each other, to be materially weakened by the chance or probability that some few of them are individually unsound."

     Robinson and Pierpont state the same principle in the preface to their edition (viii): "Byzantine-priority theory does not operate on an eclectic variant-by-variant basis. Rather, it continually investigates the position of all variant units within the history of transmission" (emphasis mine). It is this principle that prevents scholars, e.g., from receiving the rarer φαγεσθε in 1 Cor 10:27, even though it is the earliest attested reading (cf. p46) and appears in distinction to the otherwised harmonized εσθιετε, which appears in 10:25 and 28.
     Consequently, the reason for κρυφαιω's rise in a few witnesses of Matthew, just as for p46's φαγεσθε in 1 Cor 10:27, is necessarily speculative. Matthäi (91) remarks, "Perhaps κρυφαιω was obtained from Origen, whose commentary unfortunately is not extant at this place." Fritzsche (274), on the other hand, greatly wonders whether κρυπτω might not have been "rashly refined into κρυφαιω by those who had referred to God as 'the hidden God' [occulto Deo] from a wrong interpretation of κρυπτω." And in fact Eusebius (Demonstratio evangelica 5.4.4–15 [GCS 9/3:224–6]) abandons the LXX rendering of מסתתר in Is 45:15 as και ουκ ηδειμεν ("and we did not know [him]") in favor of the translations of Aquila (αποκρυπτομενος), Theodotion (κρυφαιος), and Symmachus (κρυφαιος), saying that "very wonderfully does [Isaiah] call Christ the 'Hidden God,'" and using this text to argue for the eternal existence and godhead of Jesus. But neither do Eusebius' interpretation nor Western theology's important Deus Absconditus concept (which is more about absence than blessing) fit very well internally at this place in Matthew.
     On the other hand, the introduction of the synonym κρυφαιω may have been simply an early editorial preference to escape the repition of κρυπτω (4 times in the previous few verses), or for some other unknown reason. In this regard it is not insignificant that the Alexandrian Cyril (Commentarii in Lucam 22.40 [PG 72:921A]), when citing the model prayer in Matthew 6:6, says "προσευξαι τω Πατρι σου τω εν τω κρυφαιω· και ο Πατηρ σου ο βλεπων εν τω κρυφαιω αποδωσει σοι εν τω φανερω," even though no known manuscripts have κρυφαιω in Matt 6:6 (all have κρυπτω there).
     Finally, we cannot agree that the mere alignment of D and f1 with the archetype of ℵ-B constitutes an outstanding class of evidence. A casual glance at the many coincidences of those witnesses in the first six chapters of Matthew proves that they are not so "completely unrelated" as von Soden claims. Further, it is the combined judgment of the continual sequence of the readings of manuscripts in the manuscript tradition, and not individual and arbitrary judgments without regard to such, that causes the consensus text's κρυπτω to be preferred; that term is also demonstrably more Matthean, while the other is not.

Matt 2:9 εστη

     A few manuscripts (ℵ B C D f1 33 205 pc) alter the aorist active εστη into the aorist passive εσταθη, perhaps reflecting a pious improvement of the text, namely, as Fritzsche (77) contends, to teach that the star did not stop accidentally by its own power but rather that its course had been prevented by divine influence. Wettstein (1:247), citing Ammonius as an example, notes that the grammarians differentiated the action of the two words, σταθηναι indicating action by means of another and στηναι indicating action by one's own power, but also comments that the biblical authors did not always follow such tidy distinctions (cf. Luke 8:44; 18:11, 40; 19:8; Acts 2:14; 17:22, etc.). Bloomfield (Annotations, 1) agrees that εσταθη is a critical emendation, and chides the critics who should have known that εστη was to be taken in a "popular" sense, namely, that the star "ceased to advance and indeed disappeared." Meyer (56) likewise discerns that εσταθη is "of the nature of a gloss" in order to make the expression more precise, noting the same variation in 27:11 in almost the same manuscripts (ℵ B C L Θ Σ f1 33 pc). These internal reasons support the reading of the consensus of over 1600 Greek manuscripts, and thus εστη is to be retained.

Matt 1:18 γεννησις

Although instead of γεννησις (birth) a number of old manuscripts (p1 ℵ B C P S W Z Δ Θ Σ f1 579 pc) have γενεσις (birth, origin), the greater antiquity of the former (γεννησις) is demonstrated in part by Irenaeus in the second century and Origen in the third. Grotius (1:21) flatly states that "at one time most manuscripts had γενεσις (beginning)," and that whoever wrote Dialogi adversus Macedonianos not only cites it in this way, but clearly adds, 'η γενεσις ειπεν ουχ η γεννησις' ('beginning' is read, not 'birth'), and used this argument to show οτι τον ναον του σωματος του Χριστου το Πνευμα το αγιον εκτισε (the temple of the body of Christ was built by the Holy Spirit), and once again, πρωτον γενεσιν ακουε του ναου και τοτε γεννησιν (understand first the beginning of the temple, then the birth)." Mill (Prolegomena:72 [§757]) writes: "But there are also many alterations: Ιησου η γενεσις ουτως ην in Matt 1:18, as the author of Dialogi 3 de Trin §25 says, 'η γενεσις ουχι η γεννησις': and so perhaps certain manuscripts of his time. But γενεσις crept in from the beginning of this chapter." Furthermore, in regard to Maximus the Confessor, Mill elaborates (Prolegomena:99 [§1021]): "But also elsewhere in the third Dialogi, so the orthodox one: 'η γενεσις ειπεν, ουχι η γεννησις' (Matt 1:18). But since γενεσις only existed in a certain few manuscripts and indeed appears to have been transferred from the first verse of this chapter, and as γεννησις is in all current manuscripts and is that which accords with [true] orthodoxy, it follows that this one rather than the former is to be read." Bengel (Gnomon, 110) expounds that εγεννηθη in 1:16 and γεννησις here refer mutually to each other, the latter including both the conception (γεννηθεν, 1:20) and the nativity (γεννηθεντος, 2:1). Rinck (247) suggests that this evangelist appears to establish a distinction between the ancestry of Christ (γενεσις) in verse 1 and his nativity (γεννησις) in verse 18. Wettstein (1:222–3) argues that the orthodox would use γενεσις to say that Jesus materially became mankind, that the Greeks used this word in their lectionary title for this passage, that the use of γενεσις in 1:1 signifies something different, and that Jesus, although referred to with γινομαι in Scripture (Gal 4:4; Rom 1:3; John 1:4), is nevertheless clearly referred to with γενναω in Matthew (1:20, 2:1), and for these reasons the reading that appears in the vast majority of all Greek manuscripts, namely, γεννησις, was without doubt the reading that proceeded from Matthew. Matthäi (33) argues that γεννησις was rashly changed into γενεσις from the scholia of scribes, quotes a scholium showing indifference toward distinguishing the two terms, and furthermore notes that scribes repeatedly intermingled the words γενναω and γινομαι even in other writers, just as they do βαλειν and λαβειν. Given that γεννησις is the older reading, reflects the consensus of all Greek and Old Latin manuscripts and is more consistent with Matthew's contextual literary technique (cf. 1:20 and 2:1), that γενεσις is the more classical term and was arguably more apologetically popular to the orthodox (and therefore more likely to elicit assimilation to it than away from it), that various scholia and the Greek lectionary title of the passage could have influenced the alteration of γεννησις in the text, and that the temptation to scribes would have been great to assimilate γεννησις at this place to γενεσις in 1:1 due to the presence of Ιησου Χριστου connected to the terms in both places, it is necessary to retain γεννησις as authentic. Cf. the note on Luke 1:14, where the same variation occurs, and John 8:41, where a few manuscripts alter γεγεννημεθα into γεγενημεθα (p66 N W 0250 f13 565 al). Cf. also the treatment of Burgon (Revision Revised, 119–22), who cites the following fathers in support of γεννησις: Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Basil, Athanasius, Epiphanius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Cyril of Alexandria, Nestorius, Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia; Zahn (69–70), who begins his critical explanation thus: "With still greater certainty is γεννησις to be read in spite of the noble testimony for γενεσις (p1 ℵ B C P S Z Δ Σ pc)" (72); and also Lagrange (8–9). For perhaps the most thorough defense of γεννησις ever published, see Solomon Caesar Malan, A Plea for the Received Greek Text and for the Authorised Version of the New Testament (London: Hatchards, 1869), 1–31.