Matthew 17:15

Lunatic or Epileptic?

John William Burgon

In a similar spirit to that which dictated our remarks on the attempted elimination of “Miracles” from the N. T. of the future,—we altogether disapprove of the attempt to introduce “is Epileptic,” as the rendering of σεληνιάζεται, in S. Matth. xvii. 15.

The miracle performed on “the lunatic child” may never more come abroad under a different name. In a matter like this, 500 years of occupation, (or rather 1700, for “lunaticus” is the reading of all the Latin copies,) constitute a title which may not be disputed.

“Epileptic” is a sorry gloss—not a translation. Even were it demonstrable that Epilepsy exclusively exhibits every feature related in connection with the present case;* and that sufferers from Epilepsy are specially affected by the moon’s changes, (neither of which things are certainly true): even so, the Revisionists would be wholly unwarranted in doing violence to the Evangelist’s language, in order to bring into prominence their own private opinion that what is called “Lunacy” here (and in ch. iv. 24) is to be identified with the ordinary malady called “Epilepsy.” This was confessedly an extraordinary case of demoniacal possession** besides.

The Revisionists have in fact gone out of their way in order to introduce us to a set of difficulties with which before we had no acquaintance. And after all, the English reader desires to know—not, by any means, what two-thirds of the Revisionists conjecture was the matter with the child, but—what the child’s Father actually said was the matter with him.

Now, the Father undeniably did not say that the child was “Epileptic,” but that he was “Lunatic.” The man employed a term which (singular to relate) has its own precise English equivalent;—a term which embodies to this hour (as it did anciently) the popular belief that the moon influences certain forms of disease.

With the advance of Science, civilized nations surrender such Beliefs; but they do not therefore revolutionize their Terminology. “The advance of Science,” however, has nothing whatever to do with the Translation of the word before us. The Author of this particular rendering (begging his pardon) is open to a process “de lunatico inquirendo” for having imagined the contrary.

* S. Matth. xvii. 15: S. Mk. ix. 18, 20, 22, 26: S. Lu. ix. 39, 42.

** Consider our LORD’s solemn words in Mtt. xvii. 21,—“But this kind goeth not out save by prayer and fasting,”—12 words left out by the R. V., though witnessed to by all the Copies but 3: by the Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and Armenian Versions: and by the following Fathers:—(1) Origen, (2) Tertullian, (3) the Syriac Clement, (4) the Syriac Canons of Eusebius, (5) Athanasius, (6) Basil, (7) Ambrose, (8) Juvencus, (9) Chrysostom, (10) Opus imp., (11) Hilary, (12) Augustine, (13) J. Damascene, and others. Then (it will be asked), why have the Revisionists left them out? Because (we answer) they have been misled by B Aleph, Cureton’s Syriac and the Sahidic,– as untrustworthy a quaternion of witnesses to the text of Scripture as could be named.

Source: Burgon’s Revision Revised, pg. 205-6 [read online]