Benadam74′s Blog

The Conclusion of Matthew by Hans Kosmala 1-3

I

The conclusion of the Gospel of Matthew is the only passage in the whole New Testament which contains the Trinitarian baptism formula. There is not a single manuscript which does not have it…

A few manuscripts have some minor variants noted in the critical editions of the text, but they are of no importance to us here. Because all manuscripts agree with each other on the inclusion of the baptism formula no doubts were ever raised about the originality of this formula until the 19th century 1). The attitude of the NT scholars of our day can be briefly summed up as follows: all scholars acknowledge that the manuscript tradition is unanimous about the inclusion of the Trinitarian baptism formula. Some of them, however, infer that the traditional text must be accepted as it is, as we have no other text, and that the matter must, therefore, rest until we find a manuscript of the Gospel without the Trinitarian formula. This may probably not be their considered opinion, but leaving the problem alone is a way out of the dilemma. Other scholars, though also admitting the manuscript evidence, would nevertheless say that the formula is late, because it can in no way be corroborated from the rest of the NT tradition.

To their support came the discovery that Eusebius in a number of his writings quotes a text which has no baptism formula at all. Instead of it(omitting verse 19b…) he continues the text of 19a…so that the line reads: “go out make all nations disciples in my name”. This variant reading will be found in the critical apparatus of NESTLE’S and KIRKPATRICK’s editions.

II

It is now over sixty years ago that F. C. CONYBEARE published a survey of all quotations of Matthew 28, 19 in the writings of Eusebius 2). There are no less than 17 attestations of the reading…Two further passages are favourable to it, whilst one is doubtful; apart from these there are also some neutral passages…CONYBEARE found that all the passages…occur in the ante-nicene writings. There are three passages in the works of Eusebius in which the textus receptus of Mat. 28, 19 is quoted, but all of these belong to the last period of his literary activity which fell after the Council of Nicea. This is certainly a remarkable observation and it looks as if texts with the shorter version of 28, 19b still existed round about 300 A.D. But then Eusebius would be our only witness, perhaps with one or two exceptions 3). Some scholars, therefore, reject this testimony, although none of them can disprove it; they merely state that Eusebius made for himself a shorter text-like RIGGENBACH and ZAHN 4) or that “the shorter text of Eusebius can hardly be considered original”, as Otto MICHEL says 5), though he does not tell us why. He admits, however, that it is very difficult to explain the sequence of the participles…for the order should be the same as in Did 7, 1…the teaching should precede the baptism. On the whole it must be said that the arguments brought forth against the shorter version are without exception extremely weak.

III

The problem with which we have to deal is not only a simple textual problem, for the theology of the Church is here involved. The passage is the standard text, accepted at least since the Council of Nicea, for one of the most important institutions of the Church and has become dear to all Christians, both Catholic and Protestant. On the other hand, we cannot expect ever to solve this problem, if we uncritically insist on the correctness of the traditional text without seriously investigating into the other possibility offered to us. We propose, therefore, to explore once more the historical position of the problem and find out first whether the textus receptus can be historically justified. We will, then, try to tackle the problem, so to speak, from the other end, setting out from the assumption that the Eusebian text is the original conclusion of the Gospel. It is quite permissible and even legitimate to take this assumption as a working hypothesis. We can, then, ask ourselves whether it is a possible and satisfactory text and whether it agrees with the concept and the purport of the Gospel. Would the Gospel suffer any loss by the substitution of the shorter conclusion or would this conclusion perhaps bring out the Gospel’s message even more clearly?   

We have already pointed out that the whole tradition of the New Testament concerning baptism stands against the textus receptus of Matthew’s conclusion. This fact is very well known among NT scholars. Nevertheless a brief recapitulation of the historical situation as recorded in the NT will be helpful in our investigation.