Two details in the closing charge to the Twelve are sometimes pulled into textual debates. One is a full line about loving son or daughter more than Christ. The other is the “cup of cold water” in verse 42. The first is a real omission in some copies. The second is largely a question of translation.
“He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” — Matthew 10:37
A line that an eye could lose
The received text balances two clauses:
- whoever loves father or mother more than Christ is not worthy of him;
- whoever loves son or daughter more than Christ is not worthy of him.
The second clause is missing in a few witnesses, including the first writing of Vaticanus. The cause is unusually visible. Both clauses end with the same Greek words, “is not worthy of me.” A scribe’s eye could pass from the first ending to the second and leave the middle line behind. The original scribe of Vaticanus added the missing words at the foot of the page, a correction that tells its own story.
Both the received and modern critical texts keep the full balance. The command is severe because Christ’s claim is supreme. He does not teach contempt for parents or children. The One who upheld the fifth commandment forbids every family love from taking his throne.
Where “water” comes from
Verse 42 reads in the Authorized Version, “a cup of cold water only.” In the Greek followed by the version, the noun water is understood rather than written: ποτήριον ψυχροῦ μόνον, “a cup of cold [drink] only.” English needs the supplied word. Mark 9:41 writes “a cup of water” explicitly, which may have led some Matthew manuscripts to add the Greek noun for water.
The critical and received texts agree in omitting that noun. The Authorized Version is not translating a different Greek reading when it says “water”; it is completing an ordinary Greek ellipsis in natural English. The translators marked such supplied words typographically in their editions.
This distinction is important. A supplied English word can be faithful without pretending to have a separate Greek word behind it. Translation carries meaning between languages; it is not a row of one-for-one counters.
The two details therefore end differently. The son-and-daughter clause belongs, and even a famous early codex shows how it was lost and restored. “Water” is a sound English supply, not a hidden addition to Matthew. Together the verses press one claim: loyalty to Christ outranks the closest earthly bond, yet the smallest act done for one of his little ones will not lose its reward.
The correction in Vaticanus is a rare material window into transmission. The first hand skipped from one identical ending to the next; a correction restored the clause at the foot. We do not have to imagine the mechanism from abstract possibility. The page displays both the fault and the remedy.
The supplied word at verse 42 displays another kind of human work. Translators must sometimes state what the source language leaves understood. The question is whether the supply gives the meaning demanded by grammar and context. A cup of “cold” in ordinary speech means a cup of cold water; Mark’s explicit noun confirms the idiom without needing to rewrite Matthew’s Greek.
Conflating those two issues would produce bad criticism. One concerns missing Greek words in a copy. The other concerns necessary English in a faithful translation. Both require comparison, but they do not belong in the same apparatus column.
Sources and further reading
- Matthew 10:34–42; Mark 9:41.
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, notes on Matthew 10:37 and 10:42.
- “The Translators to the Reader,” prefixed to the 1611 Authorized Version.