The trouble with being a two-finger typist is that one tends to make rather more typing errors than are tolerated at secretarial school. These typographical mistakes of mine drive some people crazy. I know because they’ve told me so. But try as I might, I seem quite incapable of preventing them.
It is, however, comforting to know that typographical errors are quintessentially Christian. They have afflicted Christian writings from the very earliest days. I can’t recall whether there is a spelling error in our earliest example of Christian writing: a portion of St. John’s Gospel, which dates back to between AD 90 and AD 125. It is written in Coptic and even though it is only a fragment, it wouldn’t in the least bit surprise me if it didn’t contain at least one spelling error.
Certainly, our oldest almost complete Bible is positively full of them. It is called the Codex Sinaiticus because it was discovered by the 19th century German Scriptural scholar Professor Konstatin von Tischendorf at St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai.
“Codex” is a Latin word for “book,” as opposed to “scroll.” This codex was copied in the first half of the fourth century, and, despite its venerable age, it is a perfectly horrible example of the copyist’s art.
There are some reported 5,000 serious errors in the New Testament alone, and many thousands more in the Old Testament and Apocrypha.
Why were Christian scribes so bad at their jobs?. The answer is probably lies in the fact that Christian scribes were free people. Most secular scribes were slaves, and those who made an unacceptable number of “typos” faced the uncongenial prospect of being shipped off to certain death in the lead mines.
As the 18th Century sage Dr. Samuel Johnson once observed: “Depend upon it, gentlemen. The prospect of hanging in a fortnight wonderfully concentrates the mind.”
In any event, Christianity’s rich tradition of typographical errors has stayed with us right down to the present day. Indeed, our beloved Anglican liturgy is, in part, shaped by it.
Look at your Prayer Books and you’ll see that no instruction “Let us pray” precedes the opening prayers in the Holy Communion service. Consequently, some folks listen to these prayers standing, while others kneel. But no matter which practice they follow, each imagines himself to be strictly in the purest Anglican tradition.
Actually, this liturgical eccentricity is not the product of some profound theological insight. It came into being thanks to a careless 17th century printer, who omitted to set: “Priest: The Lord be with you. Answer: And with thy spirit. Priest: Let us pray.”
It was probably the same careless typesetter who left out the lower case “i” which was to have appeared three times after each stanza of the Kyrie Eleison. Thus:
Lord have mercy upon us. iii
Christ have mercy upon us. iii
Lord have mercy upon us. iii
These three little “i’s” mean repeat three times.
This how the Anglican Communion comes to use its unique three-fold Kyrie Eleison while most other branches of the church catholic still use the ancient nine-fold version.
Priests used to be expected to put things right by saying the portions were left out: And some of us do, indeed, invite our congregations to pray at the beginning of the Eucharist and even give the “Salutation” before the Sursum Corda.
But as for that long nine-fold Kyrie, many of us figure the Holy Ghost knew what He was doing when the printer dropped those three little “i’s.” Never look a gift horse in the mouth! GPH✠
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