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Luk 3:36. Τοῦ Καϊνὰν, Kainan) Let some, as best they can, furnish out a plausible array of some MSS. which are without the name Cainan: one is without it, viz. Cantabrigiensis, called also Stephani β, and also codex Bezæ [[37]]; which, as being a MS. containing the Latin as well as the Greek, deserves the title, not so much of a codex, as of a rhapsody comprising various readings of fathers.[38] “Even supposing that in countless copies of the New and Old Testaments,” as Voss rightly remarks, “the name of this Cainan were wanting, which however is not the case, yet no argument could be derived from that circumstance. For the reason of the omission would be evident from the fact that the Church approved of and followed the calculation of Africanus and Eusebius; and therefore I wonder that more copies are not found, in which the name of Cainan is expunged.”-c. Horn., p. 13. Nevertheless so many in our time disapprove of the Cainan here, that there is a risk of its being ere long thrust out from Luke; a judgment which betrays great rashness, as Rich. Simon on this passage properly remarks, and so also Gomarus. Besides Cainan is retained in Luke by J. E. Grabius, John Hardouin, Jac. Hasæus, G. C. Hosmann, to whom are to be added thes. phil. p. 174 of Hottinger, Glassius, etc. Among the ancients is Ambrose, who, on Luke 7, says, “The Lord was born of Mary in the seventy-seventh generation.” That this Cainan was mentioned in the LXX. Version made before the nativity of Christ (See Gen 10:24; Gen 11:12; 1Ch 1:18, [in which passages Cainan’s name is passed over]) the Chronicon of Demetrius in Eusebius, B. ix. præp. Ev. page 425, proves. Moreover many documents attest that Theophilus, to whom Luke wrote, was at Alexandria. There is no doubt but that ‘Cainan’ was read at least in the LXX. version at Alexandria, that I may not say that it was in that city the insertion of his name took place. Wherefore it was not suitable that ‘Cainan’ should already at that early time [the first sending of the Gospel to Alexandria] be either omitted by Luke or marked openly with the brand of spuriousness. Elsewhere also Luke made that concession to the Hellenistic Jews, that he followed the LXX. translators in preference to the Hebrew text. Act 7:14. And so here he did not expunge ‘Cainan,’ whose name was inserted in their version. And yet he did not thereby do any violence to truth; for the fact of the descent of Jesus Christ from David, though some fathers have been passed over in Matthew, and similarly on the other hand Cainan has been retained in Luke, still remains uninjured. Nay, even he took precaution for the exactness of the main truth by that prefatory observation, as was accounted, Luk 3:23, where see the note. In fine, it is not the province of those who discuss the New Testament to warrant the infallible accuracy of readings of the LXX. translators. In the chronology the question concerning Cainan is of especial moment. Therefore we have said something concerning that person in the Ordo Temporum, p. 52 (Ed. ii., p. 44, 45), Lightfoot read Cainan in the Accusative form (‘Cainanem’).[39]
[37] Bezæ, or Cantabrig.: Univ. libr., Cambridge: fifth cent.: publ. by Kipling, 1793: Gospels, Acts, and some Epp. def.
[38] A very unjust judgment. D was presented to Cambridge University by Beza in 1531. Its readings are very peculiar, and belong to a different class from the Alexandrine MSS. Tischend. thinks it can be irrefragably proved to be as old as the sixth century.-ED. and TRANSL.
[39] Tischend. reads Καϊνὰμ with BL. Lachm. with Aabc Vulg. Rec. Text, Καϊνάν.-ED. and TRANSL.