It is often noted that Mark’s Gospel is not well represented among our early manuscripts of the Greek New Testament or in citations and comments in the Early Fathers (see e.g. Head, 2012).
So I was interested in reading through Origen’s Contra Celsum (as one does - actually for a reading group here in Oxford) to come to the discussion of Celsus’ accusation that the followers of Jesus were all wicked tax-collectors and sailors (Book 1, #62). Origen explains that of the twelve only Matthew was a tax collector. He then says (reading Chadwick’s ET): ‘I grant that the Leves who also followed Jesus was a tax-collector; but he was not of the number of the apostles, except according to one of the copies of the gospel according to Mark.’
I thought it was interesting to see that by the time he wrote Contra Celsum (late in his life according to Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. VI.36.2, post AD 245) Origen could note such a divergence in the manuscripts at Mark 3.18, and could know this variant reading which we know as existing only in Codex Bezae among Greek witnesses (Lebbaion is read in place of Thaddion in Codex Bezae and a good number of Old Latin witnesses). [With Donaldson’s main point, but against her question as to whether this might relate to Mark 2.14, I think this must relate to the passage which numbers the twelve apostles, i.e. Mark 3.18 (as also Koetschau’s notes in the GCS edition)]
When I got back to the office, I thought I should check the Greek text (generally this is a good policy - and ideally before opening one’s mouth in an Oxford seminar):
So I was interested in reading through Origen’s Contra Celsum (as one does - actually for a reading group here in Oxford) to come to the discussion of Celsus’ accusation that the followers of Jesus were all wicked tax-collectors and sailors (Book 1, #62). Origen explains that of the twelve only Matthew was a tax collector. He then says (reading Chadwick’s ET): ‘I grant that the Leves who also followed Jesus was a tax-collector; but he was not of the number of the apostles, except according to one of the copies of the gospel according to Mark.’
I thought it was interesting to see that by the time he wrote Contra Celsum (late in his life according to Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. VI.36.2, post AD 245) Origen could note such a divergence in the manuscripts at Mark 3.18, and could know this variant reading which we know as existing only in Codex Bezae among Greek witnesses (Lebbaion is read in place of Thaddion in Codex Bezae and a good number of Old Latin witnesses). [With Donaldson’s main point, but against her question as to whether this might relate to Mark 2.14, I think this must relate to the passage which numbers the twelve apostles, i.e. Mark 3.18 (as also Koetschau’s notes in the GCS edition)]
When I got back to the office, I thought I should check the Greek text (generally this is a good policy - and ideally before opening one’s mouth in an Oxford seminar):
Ἔστω δὲ καὶ ὁ Λευὴς τελώνης ἀκολουθήσας τῷ Ἰησοῦ· ἀλλ᾿ οὔτι γε τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ τῶν ἀποστόλων αὐτοῦ ἦν εἰ μὴ κατά τινα τῶν ἀντιγράφων τοῦ κατὰ Μάρκον εὐαγγελίου.Now it seems that Chadwick’s translation is quite faulty in its definiteness (‘according to one of the copies ...’) and we should think that Origen’s comment is that a reading which includes Levi within the number of the twelve is found ‘in some of the copies’. Even more interesting.
Bibliography
- A.M. Donaldson, Explicit References to New Testament Variant Readings among Greek and Latin Church Fathers (PhD; Notre Dame, 2009)
- P.M. Head,‘The Early Text of Mark’ in The Early Text of the New Testament (eds. Charles E. Hill and Michael J. Kruger; Oxford: OUP, 2012), 108–120.
- B.M. Metzger, ‘Explicit References in the Works of Origen to Variant Readings in New Testament Manuscripts’ in J.N. Birdsall and R.W. Thomson (eds.), Biblical and Patristic Essays in Memory of Robert Pierce Casey (Freiburg: Herder, 1967), 78–95. Reprinted in B.M. Metzger, Historical and Literary Studies: Pagan, Jewish, and Christian, New Testament Tools and Studies 8 (Leiden: Brill, 1968), 88–103. [I couldn’t find my copy of this, but Donaldson notes that Metzger mentions this passage.]