Erasmus’ ‘Singular’ Text

Variant Readings in the Textus Receptus of Revelation 5:14 and Its Influence on Spanish Translations

DHH: Los cuatro seres vivientes respondían: «¡Amén!» Y los veinticuatro ancianos se pusieron de rodillas y adoraron.

RVR60: Los cuatro seres vivientes decían: Amén; y los veinticuatro ancianos se postraron sobre sus rostros y adoraron al que vive por los siglos de los siglos.

KJV: And the four beasts said, Amen. And the four and twenty elders fell down and worshipped him that liveth for ever and ever.

Novum Instrumentum (and TR): καὶ τὰ τέσσαρα ζῷα ἔλεγον· ἀμήν· καὶ οἱ εἰκοσιτέσσαρες πρεσβύτεροι ἔπεσαν καὶ προσεκύνησαν ζῶντι εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων.

NA28/SBLGNT/THGNT: καὶ τὰ τέσσαρα ζῷα ἔλεγον· ἀμήν. καὶ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι ἔπεσαν καὶ προσεκύνησαν.

Here we are only concerned primarily with the addition of ζῶντι εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων, but will return later to the addition of the number of elders. The presence of this reading in the TR explains how it came to be included in the RVR60, as this version, going back as it does to Casiodoro de Reina and Cipriano de Valera, the two sixteenth-century translators responsible for the Biblia del Oso, which later came to bear the eponymous name of the modern version, was based on Erasmus’s Novum Instrumentum omne (NIO). However, this does not explain how the addition came to be included in Erasmus’ New Testament (and, later, in the Textus Receptus).

However, before exploring further the question at hand, a brief excursus may be forgiven me. It is worth noting a little-appreciated fact that Casiodoro de Reina, who translated the New Testament in 1569, was not the first to translate it into Spanish. While he made use of the Novum Instrumentum, he certainly had recourse to other translations, such as the New Testament published in 1543 by Francisco de Enzinas. Francisco, who died of the plague in 1552, was a great admirer of Erasmus and studied under Melanchthon. He translated Calvin’s catechism and Luther’s Freedom of the Christian Man. A good summary of his life and work can be found here. His translation reads:

Y los quatro animales dezían: Amen. Y los veynte y quatro ancianos ſe inclinaron, y adoraron al viuiente para ſíempre jamas.

Enzinas’s translation does indeed read with Erasmus’s 1516 edition, as well as later editions of the so-called TR. The source of the reading for the RVR60 (as well as all other translations based on the TR) is clear enough (though note its absence in the Reina-Valera Contemporánea, RVC, without comment). Nevertheless, the source of this reading in the NIO is not clear. For his text of Revelation, Erasmus used manuscript GA 2814 (UBA Cod. I.1.4° 1), an alternating catena manuscript with Andreas’ commentary. However, the addition in question is omitted in this manuscript. So, he did not get the text from 2814. While the modern critical hand editions make no mention of this variant, the Editio Critica Maior (ECM) of Revelation does. The ECM provides one witness in support of the addition: GA 69C, a corrector hand!

GA 69, a fifteenth-century paper manuscript containing the whole New Testament, was not particularly important to Erasmus.¹ And yet, it would seem to be a candidate for the source of the addition. While it is claimed that Erasmus had only one manuscript for the text of Revelation,² this would appear not to be the case if, as Wallace suggests, he used GA 69³ (GA 61, which he later used in support of the inclusion of the Comma Johanneum, also has Revelation, but is not a witness to the addition either). Thus, in the Greek textual tradition, the addition is found only in GA 69 as a marginal correction.

Tischendorf’s apparatus, which provides a much fuller list of witnesses to this reading, cites no Greek testimony, no versional evidence, and offers no Patristic citations in favor of the addition. The addition is supported by the TR alone in Greek (as represented by Griesbach [Gb] and Sholtz [Sz]) and by the Clementine Vulgate (CV), which is too late to be the source of Erasmus’s text, as well as by one other Latin manuscript (lips4). The Biblia Sacra Vultaga (VUL) cites only the CV in its apparatus. Tischindorf suggests that the addition was the work of Erasmus himself, translating from Latin into Greek. In a parenthetical comment on the addition, he says, “sic male vertit Erasm pro τω ζω,” thus Erasmus translated badly. He says this because the substantival dative participle should normally have the article.

The addition in the Latin tradition certainly existed prior to Erasmus, even if manuscript evidence is scantly attested in the Vulgate’s apparatus. Wycliffe knew the reading (And the foure and twenty ʽeldre men felden doun ʽin to her facis, and worschipeden the lyuynge in to worldlis of worldlis) and Wordsworth and White (1911) cite three witnesses for the addition, two of which (the Sixtine edition of 1590 and the Clementine Vultate of the same late sixteenth-century vintage) are too late to be the source of either Erasmus’ text or Wycliffe’s translation. The earliest evidence cited by Wordsworth and White is the ninth-century Irish manuscript D (Dublin, Trinity College, MS 52). Its text is certainly a potential source for the addition.

The addition itself is secondary, whether originating in the ninth century or before. The reading viventem is a singular present active participle in the accusative case. It is not dative, as the Greek would suggest. This poses no real problem, but is explained by assimilation to Revelation 4:9–10 (VUL):

[9] et cum darent illa animalia gloriam et honorem et benedictionem sedenti super thronum viventi in saecula saeculorum [10] procident viginti quattuor seniores ante sedentem in throno et adorabunt viventem in saecula saeculorum et mittent coronas suas ante thronum dicentes

In 4:9, the first participle, viventi, is dative, while the second participle in 4:10, viventem, is accusative. Yet, they are both translations for the same Greek substantival participle, τῷ ζῶντι. The most likely scenario for the addition in 5:14 is assimilation to 4:10. This is also likely the case for the addition of εἰκοσι τέσσαρες, which is also found in 4:10.

My preliminary conclusions thus far are as follows. It would appear that Erasmus is the source of the Greek reading, as Tischendorf suggests. First, the erroneous Greek reading, as pointed out by Tischendorf, is found in the margin of GA 69, and in no other known Greek New Testament manuscript. The “corrector” omits the dative article. The ink of the handwriting is very similar to the ink used to underline text throughout the folio and is likely Erasmus’ own hand, though I haven’t yet made a comparison with other known comments in other manuscripts. If it is his handwriting, and if he did retro-translate from a Latin source, the omission of the article makes sense since Latin does not have a definite article.

One last indication that Erasmus is the source for the Greek text, which likely derives from a Latin manuscript at his disposal, is the other marginal addition, εἰκοσι τέσσαρες, which, according to the ECM, is only attested in this manuscript as 69C.

This makes both the addition of ζῶντι εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων and εἰκοσι τέσσαρες singular readings in a singular manuscript, at least until further evidence should come to light. The weight of these data suggests just what we are arguing for, namely, that Erasmus, based on an unknown Latin manuscript (Ms. 52?), copied an erroneous reading into both his Latin and Greek texts, mistranslating the Greek based on Latin grammar.

It is somewhat remarkable that a singular reading, found in the main text of no extant Greek manuscript, and clearly traceable to a ninth century Latin source, came to be the principal text for the Greek New Testament (the TR) that shaped Bible translations for nearly 400 years and which today continues to be the preferred Greek text of many Christians who hold to the priority of the Textus Receptus (such as the proponents of the modern Confessional Bibliology position).⁴ However, it is a good example of how scribal errors could find their way into the mainstream of a tradition, even at a late date.

One final curiosity I do not seem to have a good explanation for is how the addition of εἰκοσι τέσσαρες (los veinticuatro ancianos) came to be part of the DHH translation, since its text was based on UBS3/4, perhaps with reference to other editions. The only explanation that I can come up with is that the inclusion of veinticuatro (twenty-four) is owing to the translation’s nature as a dynamic equivalence, and thus, the number is included to specify which elders prostrate themselves and worship.

1. Daniel B. Wallace, “Erasmus and the Book that Changed the World,” Unio cum Christo 2, no. 2 (October 2026), 42–43. https://doi.org/10.35285/ucc2.2.2016.art2 ↩︎
2. Martin Heide, “Erasmus and the Search for the Original Text of the New Testament,” TCI Blog (February 7, 2023), https://textandcanon.org/erasmus-and-the-search-for-the-original-text-of-the-new-testament/. ↩︎
3. Wallace, “Erasmus,” 42n59. ↩︎
4. It should be noted that the addition is also missing from Robinson-Pierpont 2015, as this text presents the reading of the Majority Text. ↩︎