First things first, I saw this announcement from Rick Brannan on Twitter earlier today:
This download was timely, since it helped me with this study. You can’t beat free!
Now, to the topic I wanted to discuss. In Acts 1:4 the NA 28 has a note at the end of the verse between ἠκούσατέ/ēkousate and μου/mou which states that in Codex Bezae (D, 5th century CE) and in the Clementine Vulgate (1592) there is an alternate reading (that was corrected in D). It is ην ηκουσα φησιν δια του στοματος μου/ēn ēkousa phēsin dia tou stomatos mou in Greek and quam audistis de ore meo in Latin (Codex Bezae has Greek on the recto and Latin on the verso). I found this alternate reading interesting not because there is any likelihood that it is original, but because I thought that it may provide interesting commentary on the text.
The Greek text should be translated “which you heard he said through my mouth”. Apparently, a later scribe corrected ηκουσα/ēkousa to ηκουσατε/ēkousate recognizing it as a misspelling (probably) and then corrected the additional phrase not found in other manuscripts. (The Latin text is similar being translated “which you (pl.) heard from my mouth”.*) Why did an earlier scribe write “the promise of the Father, which you heard (he said) through my mouth”?
Bruce Metzger had the following to say:
“The phrase φησὶν διὰ τοῦ στόματός μου of D it vg eth Hilary Augustine, which replaces the simple μου of all the other witnesses, is, as Ropes points out, probably ‘an expansion, ameliorating the transition to direct discourse and avoiding the awkward μου.’ (For a similar example of the vivid and homely style of the Western paraphrast, see the final comment on Mt 6.8.)” [1]
When I read the note in the NA 28 I thought that the scribe wanted to differentiate the discourse of vv. 4-8 from the statement in v. 2 that Jesus had “by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen” (NASB; Gk. ἐντειλάμενος τοῖς ἀποστόλοις διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου οὓς ἐξελέξατο ἀνελήμφθη/enteilamenos tois apostolois dia pneumatos hagiou hous exelexato anelēmphthē). In order to emphasizes that this discourse was being given by the resurrected Jesus who was physically present before his disciples before his ascension the scribe chose to emphasize speech by Jesus’ mouth. That said, I’m not sure what to do with ηκουσα/ēkousa. Is this an accidental misspelling or an attempt at another form? If another form is it 1s, aorist, active, indicative? How does that jive with the present, active, indicative of φησιν/phēsin?
There is another variation in this v. that may support my hypothesis. In 1:4a the text reads, “and gathering together with him” (Gk. και συναλισκομενος μετ αυτων/kai synaliskomenos met autōn). It would appear that συναλισκομενος/synaliskomenos is simply a misspelling of συναλιζόμενος/synalizomenos. More importantly, “with him” (μετ αυτων/met autōn) is not original. Is the scribe emphasizing that unlike v. 2 the disciples are now with Jesus in v. 4?
I’d like to hear your thoughts. If I overlooked or misread something that you think might make better sense of the variants let me know in the comments.
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* My Latin is elementary, but if I read this correctly it is de + the ablative which is either “down from” or “from”.
[1] Bruce Manning Metzger and United Bible Societies, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Edition a Companion Volume to the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament (4th Rev. Ed.), 242 (London; New York: United Bible Societies, 1994) citing James Hardy Ropes, The Text of Acts, being vol. iii of The Beginnings of Christianity, ed. by K. Lake and F. J. Foakes Jackson (London, 1926), p. 2.
the archives near Emmaus 
Looks like the first hand of D originally wrote ηκουσα, which means “I heard”* and then it was corrected to ηκουσατε (“you heard”). It looks like a simple scribal mistake, either in dropping a syllable or in some kind of assimilation/harmonization to the following μου. With my limited resources at home, I don’t which corrector it was. If it was immediate, then it’s just a simple scribal error.
φησί(ν) is indeed present. It is often used as a marker of direct speech (and hosted by the first phonologically full word, here ἠκουσα[τε]). If you’re worried about the mismatch in tense, think of it as a historical present. Putting the μου into direct speech indeed makes this less rough, but there are plenty of cases with unsignaled shifts from indirect to direct speech, that grammarians have dubbed some of them as ὅτι recitativum, though here we have an infinitive instead.
As for συναλισκόμενος, it is a different verb that means “be taken captive together,” so it looks like D wanted to make the statement of vv.4-5 uttered at some earlier time, before the cross?
* I’m not sure what you mean by “1cs” — looks like a Hebrew parsing (“first person common singular”) not Greek, since Greek does not inflect finite verbs for gender. Just “1s” is good enough for Greek.
@Stephen:
Thank you! These are all very helpful insights, especially regarding φησιν, which seemed strange to me and I hadn’t thought of something like the historical present as a solution. It explains a lot.
As far as “1cs” I’m not sure why I wrote that either. I’ve corrected it now to make the post more sensible.
Hi Brian,
This blog post has intrigued me because initially I didn’t any good ideas about this variant when I first read your post.
Stephen has very good comments on this. Yes, φησιν essentially functions like a post-positive (but I don’t know if grammarians would apply the term “post-positive” to a word other than a particle… maybe they do, I just don’t know).
Curiously, many English translations (e.g., Goodspeed, RSV, NRSV, ESV, HCSB, etc.) add (in some form) “he said” into the verse… so essentially 05’s addition of φησιν ends up being added in some English translations for clarity, even though it’s not an attempt to translate 05’s variant reading into this verse.
The τε (after ηκουσα) in 05 is above the line, but like Stephen mentioned, I can’t tell whose hand added those 2 letters there.
After seeing your post yesterday, I shared the link in a Facebook TC group and it generated some discussion (so I can’t take credit for some of what I’ll mention here… just passing along some thoughts of others).
The expression “δια (του) στοματος __ (gen.)” is an interesting expression. It occurs several times in Luke-Acts (but basically no where else in GNT) as a reference to something in the OT scriptures being spoken by God “through the mouth of ___”… whether that be through the mouth of: “the holy prophets” (Lk 1:70), “David” (Acts 1:16), “all the prophets” (Acts 3:18), “his holy prophets” (Acts 3;21), or “your servant David” (Acts 4:25). The only time in Luke-Acts when the expression doesn’t refer to OT scripture being spoken through the mouth of a human agent is Acts 15:7 where Peter says that God had chosen through his mouth that the Gentiles would hear the good news & believe… so again, divinely-commissioned message/revelation from God through a human agent’s mouth.
So that makes me wonder why these Western witnesses have this expression δια του στοματος μου instead of just μου. Is it an attempt in some way to reinforce the promise of the Spirit? But if so, why?… especially since Jesus promised this in Lk 24:49. But OTOH, I find it intriguing that early in Lk 3:16, it was JBapt (not Jesus) who promised that Jesus would baptize with the spirit (not just water)… which is the rest of the promise that continues in Acts 1:5. So I wonder, is the addition in the Western witnesses (δια του στοματος μου) an attempt to clarify that this was not merely JBapt’s promise (in Lk 3:16), but Jesus’ authoritative/prophetic promise (in Lk 24:49)? I dunno, but that’s where I’m leaning on this.
Thanks for mentioning this variant. Really intriguing.
Jeff:
I noticed that some translations were adding “he said,” which I found surprising and perplexing. I wonder if someone knew about this variant and thought, “Well, that is helpful!”
The “through the mouth” motif is fascinating. I hadn’t thought to look at that, but you’re correct, there does seem to be an effort to make sure that a divinely-commissioned message has come from Jesus. I wonder (pure speculation here) if there was concern that David, the prophets, and even Peter had experiencd this, but Jesus himself had not been depicted as doing so?
Acts 1:4-5 as they read does seem to have Jesus confirming here that the promise he mentions in Lk 24:49 is the same as what John predicted. Since all the Gospels and Acts do their best to make sure readers know that Jesus is superior to John I wonder if this is scribal participation? Don’t want Jesus merely piggy-backing off of John, but instead, the prediction is equally that of Jesus.
Yes, what you say in your last paragraph is what I’m wondering about regarding this variant… essentially that the Western witnesses are trying to show that the promise of the spirit was not merely JBapt’s promise (Lk 3:16), but it was Jesus’ actual promise (Lk 24:49) even though we don’t find the wording of that promise (as in Acts 1:5) in Jesus’ mouth in Luke 24:49. I’d be curious to know if Michael Parsons at Baylor mentions anything about this variant since he has done so much work on the unity of Luke-Acts. Hope this is helpful. Keep up the great blogging.
It has been helpful. Thank you for participating in the discussion! If I run across something by Parsons I’ll make sure to relay it.
You know, I also wonder if the addition in the Western witnesses has to do with Luke omitting reference that the disciples were to go to Galilee after the resurrection (Mk 14:28; 16:7; Mt 28:10), and instead has the disciples stay in Jerusalem for the Spirit. So were the Western witnesses enforcing the promise that the disciples really were to stay in Jerusalem instead of going to Galilee? I dunno. Just a thought.
That is an option, or indicating that while some of these appearances may have been elsewhere, the climax of events would occur back in Jerusalem. Luke has made sure that the opening scenes are Jerusalem based, and Jerusalem is extremely important for his overarching argument as Jesus marches toward Jerusalem in his Gospel then the Gospel marches from Jerusalem in Acts. I don’t know if these variants are reinforcing this or not.