Luke 1:46

Luke 1:46 Maria,m {A}

Who is represented as the speaker of the Magnificat? According to the overwhelming preponderance of evidence, comprising all Greek witnesses and almost all versional and patristic witnesses, it was spoken by Mary. On the other hand, according to half a dozen witnesses, chiefly Latin, it was spoken by Elizabeth. These latter witnesses are three Old Latin manuscripts (namely ms. a of the fourth century [Elisabet], ms. b of the fifth century [Elisabel], and ms. 1* of the seventh or eighth century [Elisabeth]), and three patristic writers (Irenaeus in his Against Heresies IV.vii:1 according to the Armenian translation and certain manuscripts of the Latin translation [but in III.x:1 all manuscripts read Mary]; Niceta, bishop of Remesiana in Dacia [Yugoslavia]; and Jerome’s translation of Origen’s remark that some [Greek?] manuscripts of Luke read Elizabeth instead of Mary).

How shall this evidence be interpreted? ² There are three possibilities: (1) The original text read simply Kai. ei=pen( Megalu,nei …, and some copyists supplied Mary, and others Elizabeth. (2) The name Elizabeth was present originally, but, because of doctrinal considerations related to the veneration of the Virgin, most copyists changed it to Mary. (3) The name Mary was present originally, but several copyists, assuming that the Magnificat was included in the subject of evplh,sqh pneu,matoj a`gi,ou (ver. Luke 1:41), and noticing the use of auvth|/ in ver. Luke 1:56, changed Mary to Elizabeth.

Although sympathetic to the supposition that perhaps neither name was present in the original text, the Committee was impressed by the overwhelming weight of external evidence, as well as by the balance of internal probabilities, and therefore preferred to read Maria,m as the subject of ei=pen.

² For a bibliographical survey of the chief arguments, see R. Laurentin in Biblica, XXXVIII (1957), pp. 15—23.