John Burgon on Luke 11:2-4

An instructive specimen of depravation follows, which can be traced to Marcion’s mutilated recension of S. Luke’s Gospel. We venture to entreat the favour of the reader’s sustained attention to the license with which the LORD’S Prayer as given in S. Luke’s Gospel (xi. 2-4), is exhibited by codices aABCD. For every reason one would have expected that so precious a formula would have been enshrined in the ‘old uncials’ in peculiar safety; handled by copyists of the IVth, Vth, and VIth centuries with peculiar reverence. Let us ascertain exactly what has befallen it:—

(a) D introduces the LORD’S Prayer by interpolating the following paraphrase of S. Matthew vi. 7:—‘Use not vain repetitions as the rest: for some suppose that they shall be heard by their much speaking. But when ye pray… After which portentous exordium,

(b) Ba omit the 5 words ‘Our’ ‘which art in heaven,’ Then,

(c) D omits the article (to,) before ‘name:’ and supplements the first petition with the words ‘upon us’ (ef hmaj). It must needs also transpose the words ‘Thy kingdom (h basileia sou).

(d) B in turn omits the third petition,—‘Thy will be done, as in heaven, also on the earth;’ which 11 words a retains, but adds ‘so’ before ‘also, and omits the article (thj); finding for once an ally in ACD.

(e) aD for didou write doj (from Matt.).

(f) a omits the article (to,) before ‘day by day.’ And,

(g) D, instead of the 3 last-named words, writes ‘this day (from Matt.): substitutes ‘debts (ta ofeilhmata) for ‘sins’ (ta amarthmata),—also from Matt.): and in place of ‘for [we] [/i]ourselves[/i]’ (kai gar autoi) writes ‘as also we’ (wj kai hmeij, again from Matt.).—But,

(h) a shows its sympathy with D by accepting two-thirds of this last blunder: exhibiting ‘as also [we] ourselves’ (wj kai autoi).

(i) D consistently reads ‘our debtors (toij ofeiletaij hmwn) in place of ‘every one that is indebted to us’ (panti ofeilonti hmin).—Finally,

(j) Ba omit the last petition,—‘but deliver us from evil’ (alla rusai hmaj apo tou ponhrou)—unsupported by AC or D. Of lesser discrepancies we decline to take account.


So then, these five ‘first-class authorities’ are found to throw themselves into six different combinations in their departures from S. Luke’s way of exhibiting the LORD’S Prayer,—which, among them, they contrive to falsify in respect of no less than 45 words; and yet they are never able to agree among themselves as to any single various reading: while only once are more than two of them observed to stand together, —viz. in the unauthorized omission of the article. In respect of 32 (out of the 45) words, they bear in turn solitary evidence. What need to declare that it is certainly false in every instance? Such however is the infatuation of the Critics, that the vagaries of B are all taken for gospel. Besides omitting the 11 words which B jointly omits with a, Drs. Westcott and Hort erase from the Book of Life those other 11 precious words which are omitted by B only. And in this way it comes to pass that the mutilated condition [the words omitted are…22] to which the scalpel of Marcion the heretic reduced the LORD’S Prayer some 1730 years ago, (for the mischief can all be traced back to him!), is palmed off on the Church of England by the Revisionists as the work of the HOLY GHOST! (from The Revision Revised, pp. 34-36)

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Steve Rafalsky
Elder, International Evangelical Church (Reformed)
Limassol, Cyprus

"I am set for the defense of the gospel" (Philippians 1:17)

"Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious
power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness..." (Colossians 1:11)

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