2. Bart D. Ehrman on ὀργισθείς

After nearly two and a half centuries of debate on this variation unit,Footnote ⁵ Bart Ehrman's ‘A Leper in the Hands of an Angry Jesus’ is the strongest collocation of arguments for ὀργισθείς.Footnote ⁶ Ehrman is to be commended for his accessible, lucid article. However, significant problems affect his case.

Ehrman begins by examining the external evidence. Importantly, he does not limit his inquiry to the manuscript tradition of Mark, but extends it to Matthew and Luke, whom he deems ‘the earliest surviving copyists of Mark’.Footnote ⁷ Since both Matthew and Luke lack a participle for Mark 1.41 par., Ehrman argues that this ‘minor agreement’ ‘is understandable if – and only if – the participle in question may have caused offense or dissatisfaction to both authors’.Footnote ⁸ He adds elsewhere that ‘in no other instance in which Jesus is said to feel compassion (σπλαγχνίζεσθαι) in Mark's Gospel, do both Matthew and Luke change it’.Footnote ⁹ However, there is an instance in which Jesus is asked to show compassion (σπλαγχνίζομαι) in Mark's Gospel that both Matthew and Luke omit, a datum Ehrman never registers in his many publications on this variant.Footnote ¹⁰ Luke, in fact, lacks every use of σπλαγχνίζομαι from Mark.Footnote ¹¹ And we have no comparative situation with ὀργίζομαι since its only possible appearance in Mark is the putative case of Mark 1.41.Footnote ¹² Ehrman likewise notes that Matthew and Luke omit μετ’ ὀργῆς in Mark 3.5.Footnote ¹³ But he fails to indicate that both also lack the very next words, where Jesus is ‘sympathising’ (συλλυπούμενος).Footnote ¹⁴ Elsewhere, both omit an instance of Jesus having ‘mercy’ on supplicants, a cognate of compassion.Footnote ¹⁵ And these ‘minor agreements’ cannot be thought of as sanding down the rough edges of Mark's Jesus: why would Matthew and Luke censor sympathy and mercy?

Though Ehrman declares that Matthew and Luke omitted the debated participle ‘if and only if’ they were both offended by it, this is a propositional fallacy – there are many possible reasons. Indeed, it must be admitted that Matthew and Luke omit a great many words when epitomising Mark's pericopes. When used as corroborative evidence for ὀργισθείς in Mark 1.41, these absences are of dubious value.

Another important piece of Ehrman's case is his use of intrinsic probabilities, ‘which of the two readings – Jesus as angry or as compassionate – fits better with the portrayal of Jesus in Mark's Gospel’.Footnote ¹⁶ Ehrman argues that ‘Jesus is never described in [Mark] as exercising compassion when he heals. Instead, the emotion commonly associated with him – odd as it may seem – is anger’.Footnote ¹⁷ We shall consider the points of Ehrman's intrinsic argument in turn.

First, Ehrman says that ‘on only one occasion does the term “compassion” (σπλαγχνισθείς) occur in a story in which Jesus heals anyone with a disease or a demon [in Mark]; and in that instance the term is not used to describe him’.Footnote ¹⁸ But the criterion needs to be applied evenly: aside from the putative case of Mark 1.41, ὀργίζομαι never even appears in Mark, greatly reducing its intrinsic probability.Footnote ¹⁹ Further, Ehrman only examines the use of σπλαγχνίζομαι in Mark, whereas he examines a wide range of synonyms for ὀργίζομαι. After adjusting for this bias, we find that:

1. (1) Jesus enjoins the exorcised Gerasene demoniac to proclaim ‘how he has had mercy (ἠλέησέν) on you’ (Mark 5.19);

2. (2) before being healed, Bartimaeus implores, ‘Jesus, son of David, have mercy (ἐλέησόν) on me’ (Mark 10.47, 48).

In Mark, acts of restoration are explicitly associated with Jesus’ mercy, so association with compassion would scarcely be out of place.

Second, one of the narratives of Jesus’ anger is equally an instance of his sympathy. Ehrman rightly adduces Mark 3.5 to make his case; indeed, this is the only use (aside from the putative case of 1.41) of Jesus' ὀργή while healing in Mark. Before healing the man with the withered hand, Jesus looks around at the religious elite ‘with anger (μετ’ ὀργῆς)’ (3.5). Yet, as noted above, Jesus is also ‘sympathising over the hardness of their heart (συλλυπούμενος ἐπὶ τῇ πωρώσει τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν)’. Before healing, Jesus shows mixed emotions, both wrath and sympathy.

Third, Ehrman notes that ‘on two occasions Jesus is explicitly said to feel compassion in Mark’, but he dismisses these uses of σπλαγχνίζομαι because they are not associated with healings, only miraculous feedings.Footnote ²⁰ Yet this same methodological constraint is not applied to the anger word family when Ehrman speaks of anger ‘in the context of a request for a miracle’ and in the case of an exorcism.Footnote ²¹ Applying his criterion evenhandedly, we find three instances of σπλαγχνίζομαι in the context of miracles and exorcisms and, of course, zero for ὀργίζομαι.Footnote ²²

Fourth, Ehrman argues that Jesus’ ‘laying hands on the children’ could mean healing: ‘In our culture laying on hands may be simply a symbolic gesture of blessing; but in Mark's Gospel it is usually a sign of healing.’Footnote ²³ He then adduces the pericope as evidence that, possibly before healing, Jesus was annoyed (ἠγανάκτησεν). Yet the text gives no indications that the children are ill.Footnote ²⁴ And it is not just ‘our culture’ that associates the laying on of hands with blessing, but Mark's text: ‘And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed (κατευλόγει) them’ (10.16 NRSV). Or if a ‘transmission of divine power’ was meant,Footnote ²⁵ then would it not be a miracle rather than a healing, and so inapplicable by Ehrman's own criteria?Footnote ²⁶ Again, σπλαγχνίζομαι and ὀργίζομαι have to play by the same set of rules.

Fifth and finally, in none of these cases is Jesus’ anger directed at the supplicant. Anger and compassion are directed at the religious elite (3.5) and annoyance at Jesus’ own fallible followers (10.14). But Jesus is not annoyed with the little children or irritated with the man with the withered hand. Yet for Ehrman ‘Jesus becomes irate with a poor leper who begs to be healed’.Footnote ²⁷ Thus Ehrman can scarcely appeal to intrinsic probability, a criterion that looks to similarities within a given text, since Jesus’ anger with the supplicant in Mark 1.41 would be unlike all other healings in Mark.Footnote ²⁸

In sum, Ehrman is not in a position to maintain that ‘never in the Gospel of Mark is the term “compassion” associated with Jesus healing; on several occasions anger is’, and his use of intrinsic probabilities as a basis for ὀργισθείς in Mark 1.41 should be rejected.Footnote ²⁹

This rejection opens up a positive basis for considering σπλαγχνισθείς in terms of intrinsic probabilities, namely that Mark:

1. (1) associates ‘mercy’ (ἐλεέω) and ‘sympathy’ (συλλυπέω) with deeds of power;

2. (2) associates ‘compassion’ (σπλαγχνίζομαι) with deeds of power; and

3. (3) uses σπλαγχνίζομαι three times but never ὀργίζομαι.Footnote ³⁰

Thus, intrinsic probability favours not ὀργισθείς but σπλαγχνισθείς.Footnote ³¹

The strongest point in favour of ὀργισθείς is transcriptional probability, specifically that it is the lectio difficilior, which receives careful consideration below (section 5). Having examined the majority of the arguments for ὀργισθείς, and finding them inadequate, we are now ready to examine the witnesses to Jesus’ ‘anger’ afresh, beginning with the sole putative Syriac witness.

3. Ephrem the SyrianFootnote ³²

Various Greek New Testament critical apparatuses list ‘Tatian’, the ‘Diatessaron’, ‘Ephrem Syrus’ or ‘Ephrem's Commentary on the Diatessaron’ as a witness to ὀργισθείς in Mark 1.41.Footnote ³³ The passage in Ephrem's commentary reads:

This passage has long been used as evidence for ὀργισθείς in Mark 1.41. And if Ephrem gives us a faithful glimpse of Tatian's Diatessaron, the ‘anger’ reading would reach back to ca. 170 ce, making it equal to σπλαγχνισθείς on external grounds.Footnote ³⁵ However, several observations call this use into question.

First, if we were expecting the Syriac word that is typically used to translate ὀργίζομαι, we do not find it in Ephrem's text. The Syriac word (rgez) is used to render ὀργίζομαι in the major Syriac translations of the Gospels, but Ephrem has the exceedingly rare (ʾettp̱īr), which is never used in the New Testament to translate ὀργίζομαι.Footnote ³⁶

Second, Ephrem never in fact quotes ‘anger’ from his text of the Diatessaron.Footnote ³⁷ The UBS committee advises: ‘for the citations derived from Ephraem's commentary … be cautious in using the Diatessaron as a witness to the text of the New Testament’; instead one should only use ‘Diatessaron quotations’.Footnote ³⁸ Thus the attempt to recover Tatian from Ephrem's comments, not his citation, is dubious at best. Ephrem's citation of Tatian simply reads, ‘If you are willing, you can cleanse me. So he stretched out his hand.’ His citation lacks an emotion, as do most other extant Diatessaron witnesses.Footnote ³⁹

Third, when initially broaching Jesus’ anger, Ephrem attaches it not to Jesus’ act of reaching out, touching the leper and cleansing him, but rather to Jesus’ rebuke of the leper. Since the manuscript tradition testifies univocally that Jesus rebukes the leper in Mark 1.43, whereas the external witnesses to ὀργισθείς in Mark 1.41 are scarce, and since this is the first place in which Ephrem mentions ‘anger’, it follows that Ephrem derives this anger from Jesus’ rebuke of the leper. And the word for ‘rebuke’ that Ephrem associates with Jesus’ anger ( kāʾtāʾ) is a nominalised form of the verb in the Old Syriac of Mark 1.43 rendering ἐμβριμησάμενος ( kʾʾ).Footnote ⁴⁰ So Ephrem is unambiguously referring to the rebuke found in Mark 1.43 in his initial mention of anger.

Fourth, and relatedly, Ephrem attaches anger to Jesus’ rebuke a second time: ‘The Lord was angry … so he ordered secondly, “Go, show yourself to the priests.”’ The scenario is precisely what happens in Mark: Jesus rebukes the leper and casts him out, telling him to show himself to the priests. Again, Ephrem attaches anger to the dismissal, not to the act of touching the leper. Indeed, Kirsopp Lake thought that citations of ‘Tatian’ for Jesus’ anger in Mark 1.41 were ‘due to a mistake’ since ‘the language of Ephrem is fully accounted for by ἐμβριμησάμενος and does not imply that the Diatessaron read ὀργισθείς for σπλαγχνισθείς’.Footnote ⁴¹

Fifth, though rarely noted,Footnote ⁴² Ephrem mentions Jesus’ interaction with the leper in his Hymns on Paradise. As above, ‘anger’ is mentioned in conjunction with Jesus’ ‘rebuke’:

Ephrem is clearly puzzled by the emotional valence of Jesus’ rebuke of the leper. Like modern commentators, he wonders why Jesus rebukes him and casts him out. But Jesus’ anger is paired with ‘rebuke’. Recourse to a rare reading (ὀργισθείς) is unnecessary.

Sixth and finally, in his Commentary Ephrem contrasts ‘rebuke through his anger’ with ‘compassion through his healing’; that is, Ephrem appears to know the majority reading ‘compassion’.Footnote ⁴⁵ Mark Alan Proctor argues that Tatian's text had anger, and that this reference to Jesus’ mercy ‘results from Ephrem's explication of Tatian's harmony rather than the text of the Diatessaron itself’.Footnote ⁴⁶ That Ephrem coincidentally mentions ‘compassion’ and ‘healing’ at the exact place where over 98 per cent of our witnesses have ‘compassion’ and ‘healing’ more than strains credulity. And unlike the rare Syriac root used for ‘anger’, the same triconsonantal root used to render σπλαγχνισθείς in the Old Syriac of Mark is used here ( raḥmē).Footnote ⁴⁷ Further, Romanos the Melodist's Hymn on the Leper (6th cent.), known to be influenced by Ephrem's commentary on the episode,Footnote ⁴⁸ has the following: ‘being the only merciful one, [Jesus] stretched out his hand and touched him, and the leper was cleansed’.Footnote ⁴⁹ Since Romanos knew Ephrem's Commentary and probably the Diatessaron,Footnote ⁵⁰ it is striking that he mentions Jesus’ ‘mercy’ and ‘compassion’ nine times, but never ‘anger’. Positively, Romanos may reinforce that Ephrem knows ‘compassion’, the reading also represented in the Old Syriac of Mark and in the Arabic Diatessaron. Negatively, it further undermines the case for Ephrem's knowledge of ‘anger’.

In light of the foregoing six points, it is justified that the Nestle–Aland edition no longer lists Ephrem as a witness to ὀργισθείς in Mark 1.41. In brief, inclusion of Ephrem in critical apparatuses of Mark 1.41 is most probably a result of our knowledge of ὀργισθείς, not Ephrem's.Footnote ⁵¹

4. Old Latin Witnesses

Of the three purported language groups of witnesses to ‘anger’, we have urged that Ephrem should be dismissed, and our sole Greek witness, Codex Bezae, is a Greek–Latin diglot. Thus, in discounting Ephrem, we find that all of the extant witnesses to ‘anger’ are connected with the Old Latin manuscript tradition. The only four Latin witnesses are a, ff², d and r¹*. Let us consider each of these manuscripts in turn.

Codex Vercellensis (a), a late fourth-century text on vellum, is the earliest witness in any language with ‘anger’ (iratus), predating even Codex Bezae according to current scholarly assessments.Footnote ⁵² Frederick Scrivener deemed Vercellensis ‘the oldest and probably the best monument of the Latin before Jerome’.Footnote ⁵³ Scholarship consistently places its origin in northern Italy, where it was discovered and still resides.Footnote ⁵⁴

Codex Corbeiensis ii (ff²) is a fifth-century witnesses to iratus. Buchanan claimed that it ‘surpasses in age all other Old Latin MSS with the exception of [Vercellensis]’.Footnote ⁵⁵ Scholarship currently supports an Italian provenance, though an earlier generation favoured Gaul, where it was discovered.Footnote ⁵⁶ Curiously, before representing Jesus as angry (iratus), Corbeiensis reads si vis potest me mundare rather than potes (‘if you are willing, he can cleanse me).Footnote ⁵⁷ Though this could be considered an early instance of a scribe trying to provide a reason for Jesus’ subsequent anger – perhaps Jesus was angry because the supplicant requested God's action, not Jesus’ – this interpretation is quite uncertain, and appeals to theological motivation are unnecessary in the case of one added letter. As in analogous cases in the Codex, it is probably a simple unintentional error.Footnote ⁵⁸

The famous Codex Bezae (hereafter ‘d’ for its Latin column) is another early fifth-century witness to iratus and the only diglot of the group. The provenance of the Codex is endlessly debated, with suggestions ‘ranging from Gaul to Alexandria and from Africa to Jerusalem’, and remains uncertain.Footnote ⁵⁹ Its Latin ancestor, however, is more certain, being ‘recognized as basically European’, with Corbeiensis ‘provid[ing] the basis for d’ in Mark.Footnote ⁶⁰

Our final and most intriguing Old Latin witness is the sixth- or seventh-century Codex Usserianus i (r¹*). Its provenance is either Italian or, since the hand is a precursor of the insular script, Irish.Footnote ⁶¹ Editions of the NA and UBS often failed to note that a later hand altered iratus by adding a supralinear mis-, and the same hand subtracted the a. Thus: iratus → ^misiratus → ^misirtus (see Fig. 1 Footnote ⁶² ).

Figure 1.

Mark 1.41, r¹ fol. 151v

Codex Usserianus i provides the earliest evidence that iratus was perceived to be an error in need of correction. Further, misirtus (typically misertus) was thought of by the final corrector as an acceptable way to write ‘compassion’.Footnote ⁶³ The corrector's process begs the question: if such simple additions could produce ‘compassion’ from ‘anger’, could not similarly simple deletions have originally produced ‘anger’ from ‘compassion’?

In addition to being the only witnesses to iratus, several factors link these manuscripts (a, d, ff², r¹). First, of course, all are Old Latin (i.e. non-Vulgate). Second, all share the same distinct order for the Gospels (Matthew, John, Luke, Mark), even the diglot Codez Bezae.Footnote ⁶⁴ Third, every manuscript except Vercellensis (a) also has the pericope adulterae, notably appearing for the first time in the Greek manuscript tradition in Codex Bezae, and not appearing therein again until the eight-century.Footnote ⁶⁵ Fourth, the first line of each book is written in red ink; among all extant Old Latin manuscripts, this feature occurs only in these four.Footnote ⁶⁶ Fifth, the witnesses whose provenance we can determine with a higher degree of certainty are either isolated in Italy or, if we accept the alternative locations, migrate northward through the centuries:Footnote ⁶⁷

While a question mark still hovers over the origin of Codex Bezae, all of the above factors highlight the isolation of iratus in late antiquity. The reading did not stray far, and, since we have urged that Ephrem's witness is to be discarded, we have no evidence for it outside the Old Latin milieu. If ‘anger’ were original, could this reading have been so effectively stamped out as to appear only in four manuscripts among the myriad Greek manuscripts, lectionaries, versional witnesses and patristic quotations that we possess? The odds that ‘anger’ is original and was so effectively quashed are tremendous.

Thus Old Latin is the most probable source of the variant reading ‘anger’. I propose that it is probably the result of confusion between misertus/miseratus and iratus. Perhaps this was due to (1) simple haplography followed by (2) emendation: miseratus → (1) iseratus → (2) iratus. Footnote ⁶⁸ Then iratus ended where it began: after r¹* in sixth/seventh-century Europe, we have no further witnesses.

Two further considerations require attention for the argument to hold that ‘anger’ originated in the Old Latin manuscript tradition. First, a common counterargument is that ‘anger’ is the more difficult reading, and therefore its isolation within the Old Latin tradition need not surprise. That is, it is isolated not because it is unoriginal, but because it is unpalatable. Second, if ‘anger’ originated in the Old Latin manuscript tradition, we must still explain its presence in the Greek–Latin diglot Codex Bezae. We will deal with each of these considerations in turn.

5. Lectio difficilior potior

The keystone of any case for ὀργισθείς is that it is the lectio difficilior and therefore preferable. Ehrman claims that ‘there can be little question about which reading scribes would have been likely to prefer … Confronted with a text such as this, it is no wonder that scribes would have wanted to change it.’Footnote ⁶⁹ But the question about which reading is more difficult does indeed merit consideration,Footnote ⁷⁰ and a number of assumptions have gone unexamined.Footnote ⁷¹

An angry Jesus is purportedly difficult for ‘those (like ancient scribes and modern commentators) who assume Jesus must have been compassionate at all times and reserved his anger only for his hardhearted and willful enemies’.Footnote ⁷² These grounds for difficulty are theological or, more specifically, christological. But would ὀργισθείς have been a theologically difficult reading in most scribal contexts?

Ambrose of Milan gives the following commentary on our passage:

Ambrose is an early witness to ‘compassion’. But, for argument's sake, let us imagine instead that he had iratus in his text of Mark. Would this have been problematic? Or would it have been profitable since, with ‘anger’, Ambrose could have also attacked Marcion in addition to the other heretics? This requires elaboration.

Marcion taught that the god of ‘the Old Testament … is wrathful’, ‘the lord of wrath’, different from the divine father of Jesus.Footnote ⁷⁴ With ‘anger’ in our hypothetical situation, Ambrose could have countered Marcion by showing that not only is the Old Testament God loving, but even Jesus can be wrathful.Footnote ⁷⁵ Indeed, Ambrose makes precisely this type of argument – Marcion blames the Old Testament god for X, but even Jesus does X – elsewhere.Footnote ⁷⁶ And Marcion is a common target for Ambrose.Footnote ⁷⁷ So ‘anger’ would not have been difficult for Ambrose. Quite the contrary, when wielded against Marcionism, Jesus’ anger would have become a powerful weapon.

Indeed, Origen had employed a similar anti-Marcionite strategy over a century earlier:

Origen's argument runs as follows: whereas the Marcionites suppose the king's anger is the demiurge's, in fact it is Jesus’ since (i) the Father also will do such-and-such, implying the king is not God the Father, and (ii) Jesus is the ‘king’ elsewhere, e.g. the Parable of the Pounds (Luke 19.11–27).Footnote ⁷⁹ Origen's strategy is weighty for our reading of Mark 1.41. Far from being embarrassed by Jesus’ anger, in countering Marcion Origen appears to be searching for an angry Jesus, one who hands an unrepentant servant over to torture. Indeed, the very same participle that Ehrman supposes scribes would resist applying to Jesus (ὀργισθείς) is here applied to him.

Marcionism forms an important context within which ‘compassion’ and ‘anger’ were transmitted, and the vanguard against it stretched from Gaul to Syria.Footnote ⁸⁰ Already Justin says that Marcion led astray ‘many of every nation’ and Marcionism had expanded ‘even to the ends of the earth’.Footnote ⁸¹ And Marcionism continued in some regions as late as the tenth century.Footnote ⁸² Thus the greater the opposition to Marcionism, the greater the number of contexts in which ‘anger’ was not necessarily problematic, but potentially profitable.

Therefore, though I agree with Ehrman that ὀργισθείς is the lectio difficilior ‘for modern commentators’, the burden of proof falls on proponents of ὀργισθείς to demonstrate that Jesus’ anger was theologically problematic for ‘ancient scribes’, especially in the first to third centuries when the change purportedly occurred.Footnote ⁸³ What evidence we have attests to no difficulties with Jesus’ anger.Footnote ⁸⁴ Indeed, nowhere in the manuscript tradition of Mark is Jesus’ anger or annoyance censored or altered.Footnote ⁸⁵ On the contrary, some manuscripts increase Jesus’ acerbity, adding that he rebukes (ἐπιτίμησας) his disciples in Mark 10.14 and that he acted ‘in anger’ (ἐν ὀργῇ) in Luke 6.10.Footnote ⁸⁶ Another ancient Markan reader applies a Septuagint passage on God's wrath to Jesus.Footnote ⁸⁷ Even d itself magnifies Jesus’ wrath in Mark, uniquely portraying him as displaying ‘indignant anger’ (ira indignationis, 3.5).

To conclude, the argument put forward for ὀργισθείς as the lectio difficilior is circular: the textual witness was purportedly changed because the word was offensive, and the word is ostensibly offensive because the textual witness was changed.Footnote ⁸⁸ Conversely, what evidence we possess demonstrates that Jesus’ anger was not problematic for many readers in antiquity, and was even increased by some.Footnote ⁸⁹ Therefore, unless better corroborative evidence can be produced, arguments that ὀργισθείς is the lectio difficilior are necessarily circular and should be rejected.

6. Codex Bezae

We arrive at our final witness, the fifth-century diglot Codex Bezae (hereafter ‘D’ for its Greek column). Though minuscule 1358 had previously been listed as one of two Greek witnesses to ὀργισθείς,Footnote ⁹⁰ this was done in error.Footnote ⁹¹ Left with only D as a Greek witness, David C. Parker's cautionary conclusion in his magisterial monograph on the Codex is worth considering: ‘the longer I have studied [D], the more I have become convinced that its many unique readings only very rarely deserve serious consideration if one is trying to establish the best available text’.Footnote ⁹²

Since D is a bilingual manuscript, an obvious solution for the appearance of ὀργισθείς is that it is due to the influence of the Latin column,Footnote ⁹³ either in D itself or in one of its exemplars.Footnote ⁹⁴ To substantiate such a hypothesis, however, requires careful analysis of D and its scribal Tendenzen.

Several points about the scribe's tendencies command our attention:

1. (1) Within the Gospels, D shows considerable variability in its orthography of σπλαγχνίζομαι,Footnote ⁹⁵ producing a defective spelling of the word in 64% of the cases (7/11).Footnote ⁹⁶

2. (2) D's orthography for ὀργίζομαι is 17% defective (1/5) with no variant spellings.

3. (3) After analysing six randomly chosen control words (i.e. verbs that do not appear in Mark 1.40–5 and appear the approximate number of times as σπλαγχνίζομαι), I find that the scribe produced no defective forms.Footnote ⁹⁷

4. (4) Thus the scribe of D struggles in an inordinate degree with σπλαγχνίζομαι, but not with the other words analysed, including ὀργίζομαι.

The use to which we can put these four observations is complicated. At the very least, the data show that for one scribe, σπλαγχνίζομαι was a difficult word. But one could argue, rather commonsensically, that σπλαγχνίζομαι is simply a difficult word to transcribe; surely D is not alone in struggling with this cumbersome verb. Yet after surveying hundreds of manuscripts using a methodology designed to determine singular readings, I find that none struggle with σπλαγχνίζομαι to the degree that D does.Footnote ⁹⁸ Indeed, if we omit from our consideration the post-ninth-century εὐσπλα- spelling,Footnote ⁹⁹ D alone displays as much variation with the word σπλαγχνίζομαι as the entirety of the surveyed manuscript tradition.Footnote ¹⁰⁰

One error in particular is a fascinating window into the mind of D's scribe. When copying Mark 6.34 (fol. 305v), the scribe wrote ΕΠΛΑΝ, mistakenly omitting the sigma (C) and substituting Ν for Γ.Footnote ¹⁰¹ But he appears to have realised his mistake in scribendo Footnote ¹⁰² and, while re-inking, erased the Ν (which is still discernible) and correctly wrote Γ, which appears darker because of the scribe's fresh ink (Fig. 2).Footnote ¹⁰³ Finally, the scribe, or perhaps a later diorthotes, added a supralinear sigma. The order of correction was: ΕΠΛΑΝ → ΕΠΛΑΝ → ΕΠΛΑΓΝΙCΘΗ → Ε^CΠΛΑΓΝΙCΘΗ.

Figure 2.

Mark 6.34, D fol. 305v.

The upshot of the foregoing is that D's scribe realised that he had made a mistake while re-inking, paused, consulted his exemplar, attempted to correct the word, and still managed to leave out a letter of the word's stem (Χ). That such concentration on his exemplar ultimately resulted in this error confirms his profound difficulties with the word.

The scribe's issue with σπλαγχνίζομαι suggests a possible transmission history for the appearance of ὀργισθείς into D Mark 1.41. A scribe,Footnote ¹⁰⁴ faced with a discrepancy in his Greek and Latin exemplar, i.e. with iratus and σπλαγχνισθείς, is forced to choose. The scribe is familiar with the common participle iratus, which is correctly transcribed in every instance.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ The Greek word σπλαγχνισθείς, a form of σπλαγχνίζομαι, is by all accounts unfamiliar to this scribe. Forced to choose between a familiar word and an unfamiliar one, the scribe harmonises the Greek to the Latin column, changing σπλαγχνισθείς to ὀργισθείς.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ Ex hypothesi, the scribe of D inserted ὀργίζομαι, a word he knew and did not struggle with, in place of σπλαγχνίζομαι, a word with which he did struggle.

Indeed, an analogous Latinisation is found in Codex Bezae's witness to Mark 3.5.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Whereas all other Greek witnesses have τῇ πωρώσει τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν, D uniquely has τῇ νεκρώσει τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν, the ‘deadness of their hearts’. As with Mark 1.41, the Latin column provides the answer to the origin of D's singular Greek reading. Along with most Old Latin witnesses, d has emortua.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ So D's rather strange νεκρώσει, a form unattested in Greek literature until Galen,Footnote ¹⁰⁹ must have been derived from the Old Latin emortua. The Latin column influenced the Greek here, increasing the likelihood that the same happened in D/d Mark 1.41.

The transmission history I have sketched for the entrance of ὀργισθείς into D above is by no means the only possibility.Footnote ¹¹⁰ The how of ὀργισθείς in D is not certain. But, increasingly, the whence is: the Old Latin manuscripts. The continuing debate on this variant would do well to focus on these witnesses.