More on Erasmus and Codex Montfortianus

Matthew in Montfortianus (per Wikipedia)

Last week I posted about the myth that Codex Montfortianus (GA 61) was made-to-order in response to a challenge by Erasmus to include it if even a single Greek manuscript could be found that had it. However, our excellent ETC commenters noted that, while it is true that Erasmus did not throw down such a gauntlet, it may still be true the Codex Montfortianus was made in response to his omission of the Comma Johanneum in his first two editions. Others, such as Tregelles, have indeed thought so.

In response, I quoted the opinion of Grantley McDonald, whose recent book on the Comma is extremely well executed (see my review).

Given the incomplete evidence, it is impossible to know why the scribe of Montfortianus altered his Greek text in so many places to conform to the Latin Vulgate. At several points throughout the manuscript, this scribe added variant readings from Erasmus’ 1516 New Testament in the margins. These variant readings are written in a slightly different ink and with different pens from that used for the body text, which may suggest that they were added later, perhaps days, perhaps years. It is clear that the scribe had access to Erasmus’ 1516 edition before relinquishing possession of the manuscript. It is less certain whether he copied it in direct reaction to Erasmus’ work. (pp. 32–33)

He goes on to cite Tregelles’s opinion. But McDonald thinks Tregelles is too confident since we might expect more readings in it that support Lee’s criticisms of Erasmus’ edition if it really was made to order.

Yesterday, however, I realized that in the thesis version of McDonald’s work, he seems a little more confident than in the published version that it was made for Erasmus. Here is what he says there, at the beginning of a detailed section on Montfortianius that is not included in the published book:

Further evidence allows us to date the manuscript quite firmly to the early sixteenth century. An examination of the textual variants in Codex Montfortianus has revealed that it was copied largely from manuscripts written in the second half of the fifteenth century, most of which were only gathered in one place after 1502; these data provide a terminus post quem for the copying of Montfortianus. It seems that Montfortianus also contains readings taken from Erasmus’ 1516 New Testament. The notion that Montfortianus was copied specifically to strong-arm Erasmus into including the comma—a suspicion hitherto based on nothing more than circumstantial evidence—thus becomes more plausible. (p. 315)

In the published version, he is less confident, but still open to the suggestion, writing, in a section not in his thesis:

Until the manuscript can be dated more precisely than the current estimate (c. 1500–1520), it is difficult to know for certain whether the scribe intended to influence Erasmus’ editorial choices. But that a recent Greek manuscript containing the comma—one of only two in the world—should have appeared in the homeland of Erasmus’ critic Lee, and should have been presented to Erasmus at the moment when it might make a difference, can certainly be described as a remarkable coincidence. (p. 33)

For my take, it still seems like a bit much to copy an entire NT manuscript just to influence Erasmus on one verse. But I certainly can’t say that this couldn’t have been part of the motivation. We may never know, but I thought I should give a bit more of McDonald’s own view given his expertise.

As a final note, any aspiring PhDs out there should note not only the quality of the content of McDonald’s thesis but also its typography and formatting. Something to aspire to.