The phrase by them of old time is missing from the modern critical text and from the reconstructed Byzantine majority text. The Textus Receptus stands here as a minority Greek reading, though it has early versional and patristic support.
“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery.” — Matthew 5:27
That fact matters. A defense of the received text cannot be reduced to “follow the most manuscripts.”
Verse 21 reads, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill.” The received verse 27 uses the same full introduction before the seventh commandment. Critics see a plain harmonization: a scribe carried the phrase six verses forward.
The late-second- or early-third-century papyrus formed by P64 and P67 supports the shorter wording. So do Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Bezae, Washingtonianus, and the Byzantine majority. The external case against the Textus Receptus is unusually broad.
The fuller reading nevertheless appears in early Latin and Syriac use and in ancient Christian citation. It was not created by the first printed Greek edition. Its omission could arise because a familiar introduction seemed repetitive or because an eye moved from “it was said” to the command itself.
What Christ is opposing
“By them of old time” can mean “to the ancients” as well as “by the ancients.” Christ is not correcting Moses as though God’s command were defective. He is opposing the heard tradition that reduced adultery to the outward act while leaving lust unjudged.
The full formula helps maintain that frame across the antitheses. Jesus sets “ye have heard” against “but I say unto you.” He speaks as the Lawgiver who reveals the command’s reach into the heart.
This is the hardest received reading in the first part of Matthew because raw Greek count and early manuscript weight favor the shorter form. Its defense rests on the whole history: early non-Greek attestation, the plausibility of loss, the repeated Matthean form, and the ecclesiastical reception that fixed it in the Textus Receptus.
The evidence should be stated without bluff. Having stated it, the received clause remains the better ministerial judgment. The most manuscripts can witness a shared early shortening just as a few early witnesses can carry an old expansion. The Church receives words, not voting rules.
The verse also tests how early evidence is described. P64+67 is genuinely early, but it is fragmentary. Its presence proves that the short form circulated near the end of the second or start of the third century. It does not provide a complete family tree from Matthew’s pen, nor does it make every later witness dependent on that papyrus.
Early patristic and versional support for the long form matters because it pushes the reading behind the medieval Greek copies that now carry it. Latin or Syriac evidence does not outweigh Greek automatically; it shows that the longer Greek ancestor was old enough to be translated and quoted.
This is precisely the kind of place where a confessional judgment should be firm without theatrical certainty about every lost page. The received clause is publicly settled and historically defensible. Its defense rests on converging evidence, not on pretending the external count is easy.
Sources and further reading
- Exodus 20:14; Matthew 5:21–30.
- Papyrus 64+67 and the major Greek witnesses to Matthew 5:27.
- Frederick H. A. Scrivener, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament.
- John William Burgon and Edward Miller, The Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels.