24:36 ουδε ο υιος (nor the Son) {B}
This theologically significant phrase is absent
from the majority of witnesses (012a 019 032 037 etc., latvl-pt,vg
sy co). However, all the oldest Greek manuscripts include oυδε ο υιος (‘nor the Son’; 01*.2b 03 05 038
etc.), along with almost one hundred minuscules (see TuT Matthew TS60),
and the variation was known to Jerome in the fourth century. Accidental
omission due to eyeskip is unlikely: it would have to involve jumping from the nomen
sacrum for ουρανων (‘heavens’) to the nomen sacrum for
υιος (‘son’). At the parallel in Mark 13:32, the
same phrase is clearly present (apart from a few minor exceptions), and Matthew’s
addition of the emphatic μνος (‘alone’) after ο πατηρ (‘the Father’) would not be in keeping with
the deletion of the clause relating to the Son. Nevetheless, it has been noted
that the co-ordination of ουδε . . . ουδε (‘neither . . .
nor’) is only rarely used in Matthew (Matt. 6:28 and 12:19; the latter is a
quotation from the Septuagint). The external evidence suggests that an early
editor removed the detail of the son’s ignorance from this gospel, presumably
on doctrinal grounds, but failed to notice it in Mark where it was left for a
handful of others to make the same change at a later point. (H. A. G.
Houghton, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament: A Companion to
the Sixth Edition of the United Bible Societies’ Greek New Testament [Stuttgart:
Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2025], 57)