Romans 11:6 KJV
"And if by grace, then [is it] no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if [it be] of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work."
The second sentence of this verse was already the focus of raging controversy before any of the KJV translators took up their pens. It was not part of the traditional text of the English church, having been left out of Wycliffe's translation:
"And if it be bi the grace of God, it is not now of werkis; ellis grace is not now grace."
The 1582 Rheims NT didn't have it, due to it not being in the officially
approved edition of the Vulgate. It was, however, present in the 1529 Wittenberg edition, but not in the words of Erasmus' Textus Receptus diglot; apparently he had access to a Vulgate ms in which it had been independently translated from the Greek.
Tyndale, translating from the Textus Receptus, rendered the verse:
"Yf it be of grace the is it not of workes. For then were grace no moare grace. Yf it be of workes then is it no moare grace. For then were deservyng no lenger deservynge."
Coverdale eliminated 'works' from the verse altogether, and then Geneva put it back in, eliminating 'deserving.' This was essentially the form in which the Bishops [Bible] and the KJV editors left it.
Naturally, most modern versions leave the sentence out--as recently as the TNIV, it was even deleted from the footnote. But is it wise? The Alexandrian manuscripts to not speak with a united voice on this verse; in fact, not a single one of them lines up exactly with the UBS text, or with each other!
UBS: EI DE CARITI, OUKETI EX ERGON, EPEI H CARIS OUKETI GINETAI CARIS.
P45 : EI DE CARIS, OUK EX ERGON, EPEI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS.
א/01*: EI DE CARITI, OUKETI EX ERGON, EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS.
02/A: EI DE CARITI, OUKETI EX ERGON, EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS.
03/B* : EI DE CARITI, OUKETI EX ERGON, EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS. EI DE EX ERGWN OUKETI CARIS EPI TO ERGON OUKETI ESTIN CARIS.
Now, as to the corrections, there is a bit of dispute in the literature. CSNTM's facsimile shows the spelling of B/03's second EPEI corrected with a tiny E above the line, which Muenster's transcript confirms, but only if you click on the right page (Compare; which leaves out 01's plus entirely). Muenster, on the other hand, shows GEINETAI corrected to delete the E, there being no sign thereof in the facsimile; perhaps an E got moved inadvertently on Muenster's template.
Insert: Here are photos of 220(recto) & 221 (verso) for B:
| Codex B: Rom 10:6-11:10 | Rom:11:10b-12:2 |
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| Click to Enlarge: backbutton returns | Click to Enlarge |
The page in question has several sections marked with a ">" down the left-margin. Romans 11:6 is in the middle of the 3rd column on the first page shown:
One can see the umlaut on right at the end of the section marked with ">" at top, and another umlaut in the middle of our line, and an unusual large colon also on the right lower down.
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| Click to Enlarge |
Of interest also may be the reading of Codex Augiensis (F-Paul, 9th cent.), a bilingual MS which reads similarly to P45 in one place:
F (Paul): ει δε χαριστι ουκ ετει εχεργων επει Η χαρισ ουκ ετι γεινεται χαρισ.
P45 : ει δε χαρισ ουκ εχ εργων, EPEI H χαρισ ουκ ετι γεινεται χαρισ.
F.H.A. Scrivener, the collator of F (1852) suggests χαριστι should be χαριτι in his exemplar (a mistake made also elsewhere in F; e.g., see the previous line!).
- mr.scrivener
Daniel Buck Continues:
א/01's correction is more straightforward: it's the addition in a 7th century hand to the bottom margin of the the rest of the verse in the Byz version, EPEI and all:
EI DE EX ERGWN OUKETI ESTIN CARIS EPEI TO ERGON OUKETI ESTIN ERGON.
Now, given that neither Sinaiticus (א) nor Vaticanus (B) end the verse at the second CARIS, it's interesting that modern editors have been so quick to do so themselves, with nary a note alerting us that "some ancient authorities add . . ." This especially when considering that other Alexandrian ms like Psi (Ψ), 104, and 1241 all have the full verse (33 has it too, but it's considered Byz in Romans).
An "Alexandrian text" of this verse can be reconstructed: it's the shared text of 01* (א) and 02 (Α), represented also in the Western text:
EI DE CARITI, OUKETI EX ERGON, EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS.
The problem is that we know that already since the copying of p46, an E had dropped out of EPEI. This was not just a simple misspelling; it changes the meaning. Furthermore, we have to somehow make sense of 03/Β (Vaticanus') reading:
"And if by grace, then [is it] no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if [it be] of works, no more grace: otherwise work is no more grace."
This can be explained by a combination of parablepsis and dittography, starting with an Alexandrian version of א /01's plus:
Step One (archetype):
EI DE CARITI OUKETI EX ERGON,
EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS
EI DE EX ERGWN OUKETI ESTIN CARIS
EPI TO ERGON OUKETI ESTIN ERGON.
Step Two:
EI DE CARITI OUKETI EX ERGON,
EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS
EI DE EX ERGWN OUKETI (move 2 words one line down)
EPI TO ERGON OUKETI ESTIN ERGON. ESTIN CARIS
Step Three:
EI DE CARITI OUKETI EX ERGON,
EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS
EI DE EX ERGWN OUKETI CARIS (move one word back up)
EPI TO ERGON OUKETI ESTIN ERGON. ESTIN CARIS.
Step Four:
EI DE CARITI OUKETI EX ERGON,
EPI H CARIS OUKETI GEINETAI CARIS
EI DE EX ERGWN OUKETI CARIS
EPI TO ERGON OUKETI (delete 2 words)ESTIN CARIS.
Thus we can see that the second half of the verse must have existed at least a couple of generations back from Vaticanus. And since 03/B has a Western influence in Romans, we could even hypothesize its existence in that text-type, without any other evidence. We don't have the exact reading of our reconstructed archetype in any manuscript, but then neither does UBS. In both cases the spelling has been conformed to a more Ionic style.
There are a number of other MS readings for this second half, and a number of other possible scenarios. The main point of this post was to show that something seems to have happened in the 2nd century to the latter half of this verse, and to just throw it out because we don't know what it was is hardly the most astute thing to do.
Daniel Buck
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