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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 1 Timothy 3:16 - 3:16
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16. The important variants in this verse require close attention. θεός of the rec. text is found in CcD2cKLP and the vast majority of cursives; but it has no support from the versions, and the earliest fathers who have it, viz. Didymus of Alexandria and Gregory of Nyssa, date from the latter part of the fourth century. On the other hand ὅς is read in אA*C*G 17. 73.181, and the Egyptian versions, and is witnessed to by Origen (probably) and by Epiphanius, Theodore and Cyril of Alexandria (certainly). And again, the Western reading ὅ, found in D2*f g, the Vulgate and the Latin fathers generally, is a manifest corruption of ὅς, introduced because of the preceding τὸ μυστήριον. The Syriac versions have a relative pronoun, but it is not certain whether it is meant to render ὅς or ὅ, as in Syriac there is no neuter. Thus, on the whole, external authority is overwhelmingly on the side of ὅς. The variant θεός would readily arise from the true reading, as confusion of θ̅Ο̅ and OC would be easy; the similarity, indeed, being so great that the reading of A has long been matter of controversy. That it witnesses to ὅς and not to θεός is, however, the opinion of most of the experts who have recently inspected the manuscript, although competent persons who had access to it a hundred years ago, when it was in better condition, believed it to read θεός. For a full discussion of all the evidence, reference should be made to Tischendorf in loc. or to Westcott and Hort’s note (Notes on Select Readings, p. 133) or to Scrivener’s Introduction, II. 390.