External Evidence against Beza's Reading at Revelation 16:5

In his 1582 edition, Beza changed Revelation 16:5 from "και ο οσιος" to "και ο εσομενος".  There are no extant Greek manuscripts with "εσομενος" in the main text.  The one extant Greek manuscript with "εσομενος" in the margin is from the late 1600s, presumably derived from Beza.

In short, there is no meaningful Greek manuscript evidence that corresponds to Beza's substitution. There is also no meaningful versional evidence that corresponds to Beza's substitution.  Thus, although Beza does not explicitly describe his change as a conjecture, I am comfortable doing so.

Nevertheless, there are additional ways that the external evidence undermines Beza's substitution. Recall that Beza's rationale was this (link):

It is commonly read, καὶ ὁ ὅσιος, the article indicating, against all manner of speaking, that the scripture has been corrupted. But whether the Vulgate reads the article or not, it translates ὅσιος no more correctly as "Sanctus" (Holy), wrongly omitting the particle καὶ, which is absolutely necessary to connect δίκαιος (righteous) & ὅσιος. But when John, in all the other places where he explains the name of Jehovah, as we said above, I.4, usually adds the third, namely καὶ Ό ἐρχόμενος, why would he have omitted that here? Therefore, I cannot doubt that the genuine scripture is what I have restored from an old bona fide manuscript (lit. old manuscript of good faith), namely Ό ἐσόμενος. The reason why Ό ἐρχόμενος is not written here, as in the four places above, namely I.4 & 8, likewise 4.8 & 11.17, is this: because there it deals with Christ as the judge who is to come; but in this vision, He is presented as already sitting on the tribunal, and exercising the decreed judgments, and indeed eternal ones.

If Beza's conjecture were correct, one would expect that at least some of the manuscripts, versions, patristic commentaries, and/or patristic citations would reflect the reading of "shall be" in place of "holy."  The closest one can come to finding such a thing is a set of possible allusions, which should be given almost no weight in the discussion because they are much more easily associated with Plato than with Scripture (link).

Similarly, even if all traces of the alleged original reading of "esomenos" were gone from the manuscript tradition, the most natural textual variant to arise as an alternative to "esomenos" would be "erchomenos" in an attempt to harmonize the text with the preceding readings in Revelation 1:4, 1:8, and 4:8, as was also done by some scribes (in error) at Revelation 11:17.

Nevertheless, a survey of the extant manuscripts (such as this one) does not show any examples of Greek manuscripts with a variant reading ερχομενος in place of οσιος.  Likewise, there are no versional witnesses that evidence a source having a substituted ερχομενος for οσιος.  There is also no clear patristic evidence of such a substitution.

Thus, in this additional way, the external evidence disfavors Beza's conclusion.  In fact, while Beza takes pains to respond to Erasmus' conjecture that ερχομενος could have been original, Beza does not explain how οσιος could have arisen in the manuscript tradition.

Someone (I think it was Dr. Thomas Holland) developed the following incorrect translation of Beza's annotation (emphasis added):

"And shall be": The usual publication is "holy one," which shows a division, contrary to the whole phrase which is foolish, distorting what is put forth in scripture. The Vulgate, however, whether it is articulately correct or not, is not proper in making the change to "holy," since a section (of the text) has worn away the part after "and," which would be absolutely necessary in connecting "righteous" and "holy one." But with John there remains a completeness where the name of Jehovah (the Lord) is used, just as we have said before, 1:4; he always uses the three closely together, therefore it is certainly "and shall be," for why would he pass over it in this place? And so without doubting the genuine writing in this ancient manuscript, I faithfully restored in the good book what was certainly there, "shall be." So why not truthfully, with good reason, write "which is to come" as before in four other places, namely 1:4 and 8; likewise in 4:3 and 11:17, because the point is the just Christ shall come away from there and bring them into being: in this way he will in fact appear setting in judgment and exercising his just and eternal decrees.

This is wrong, because it mistranslates Beza's Latin:

5 Et qui eris, καὶ Ό ἐσόμενος. Legitur vulgo, καὶ ὁ ὅσιος, ostendente articulo, praeter omnem loquendi morem, depravatam esse scripturam. Vulgata vero sive articulum legit sive non legit, nihilo rectius vertit ὅσιος, Sanctus, male extrita particula καὶ, prorsus necessaria ut δίκαιος & ὅσιος connectantur. Sed quum Ioannes reliquis omnibus locis ubi Iehouae nomen explicat, sicuti diximus supra, I.4. addere consueuerit tertium, nempe καὶ Ό ἐρχόμενος, cur istud hoc loco praeteriisset? Itaque ambigere non possum quin germana sit scriptura quam ex vetusto bonae fidei manuscripto codice restitui nempe Ό ἐσόμενος. Causa vero cur hîc non scribatur Ό ἐρχόμενος, ut supra quatuor locis, nempe I.4&8. item 4.8:& 11.17, haec est, quoniam ibi de Christo ut iudice venturo agitur: in hac vero visione proponitur ut iam in tribunali sedens, & decreta iudicia, & ea quidem aeterna exercens.

There is nothing corresponding to "a section ... has worn away the part after 'and'" in Beza's Latin.  Moreover, in case you want to verify the transcription, here are Beza's annotations in his various editions.  As you will note, the relevant annotation entered in 1580 and remained unchanged from 1580 onward:

(1556/7, vol. 2, image 1200, p. 330v)

(1565, image 1113, p. 647)

(1580 edition, image 1025, p. 475)

(1588/9 edition, image 1094, p. 506)

(1594 Annotations, image 1259, p. 643)

(1598 edition, image 1152, p. 550)

Thus, I don't think Dr. Holland's interpretation of Beza is the same as Beza.  Nevertheless, Holland's view would seemingly reconcile Beza's view with the external manuscript evidence in the sense that there may be some manuscripts where the "ο οσιος" is sufficiently obliterated to require guesswork as to whether it read "ο οσιος" or "o ερχομενος" or "ο εσομενος" (Ms. 2344 comes to mind).

Regardless, Holland's view faces the same external evidence problem.  If we are to understand that "ο οσιος" arose from a corruption of "ο εσομενος," it is hard to understand that happening during the time of uncial transmission, because of the much greater letter count of the latter and the width of capital mu and chi.  Moreover, given the testimony of most of the ancient witnesses to a corresponding exemplar with "ο οσιος", it could not have arisen only in the time of the minuscules.

Nick Sayers, on the other hand, has a radically different explanation.  In Nick's view, the word "οσιος" is a reverential scribal substitution for "εσομενος".  There are numerous weaknesses to this position including, (1) no one before the 21st century seems ever to have thought of this, including no Greek or other commentator before the 21st century, no translator into any language before the 21st century, and no expert in scribal habits of the apostolic or patristic period; and (2) while creative, the explanation is transparently specially plead: there is no other case where "οσιος" was used as a reverential substitution, there are potentially reverential substitutions in Greek (such as "Lord" rather than a transliteration of YHWH) but this is not one, and there are potentially reverential abbreviations known as "nomina sacra," but this does not fit that model of abbreviation.

Moreover, the external evidence suggests that scribes felt (as Beza also did) that "ο οσιος" here seemed awkward and attempted to remedy it in various ways, including by omitting the article and/or adding a και.  These would not have been needed if the scribes understood οσιος the way that Nick proposes it should be understood.

Moreover, two specific textual variants show that scribes did not understand the text Nick's way:

• Minuscule 469 (13th century) adds "και ο αγιος·" after "ο οσιος."  This suggests that the scribe understood οσιος as having its usual literal sense and employed an expansion of piety by compounding its synonym αγιος.  
• Minuscule 2026 (15th century) adds "εν τοις εργοις σου" ("in your works").  This suggests that the scribe understood οσιος as having its usual literal sense and added "in your works" to provide an explanation of God's holiness that fits the context.

Neither of these variants is the original reading, of course, but they illustrate the scribes' mindset.  More specifically, they show that the scribes did not share Nick's view.