A history of the textual criticism of the New Testament

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A history of

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textual

criticism of the

New

Neto Erstament J^antiljaofts

EDITED yBT

SHAILER ^MATHEWS

A HISTORY OF

THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE
NEW TESTAMENT

f^cw Cestamctit Randboofes

EDITED BY SHAILER MATHEWS

THE UNIVERSITY OF CUICAGO

A series of volumes presenting briefly and intelligibly the
results of the scientitic study of the New Testament, Each vol-
ume covers its own field, and is intended for the general reader as
well as the special student.

Arrangements have been made for the following volumes : —

THE HISTORY OF THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW-
TESTAMENT. Professor ISIarvin R. Vincent, Union Theo-
logical Seminary. [lieady.

THE HISTORY OF THE HIGHER CRITICISM OF THE NEW
TESTAMENT. Professor Henry S. Nash, Cambridge Divinity
School.

INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

Professor B. Wisner Bacon, Yale Divinity School.

THE HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
Professor J. R. S. Sterrett, Amherst College.

THE HISTORY OF NEW TESTAMENT TIMES IN PALESTINE.

Professor Shailer Mathews, The University of Chicago.

[Ready.
THE LIFE OF PAUL. President Rush Rhees, The University
of Rochester.

THE HISTORY OF THE APOSTOLIC AGE. Dr. C. W. Votaw,
The University of Chicago.

THE TEACHING OF JESUS. Professor George B. Stevens,
Yale Divinity School.

THE BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. Pro-
fessor E. P. Gould. [In Preparation.

THE TEACHING OF JESUS AND MODERN SOCIAL PROB-
LEMS. Professor Francis G. Peabody, Harvard Divinity
School.

THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN LITERATURE UNTIL EUSEBIUS.
Professor J. W. Platner, Harvard Divinity School.

A HISTORY

OF THE

TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE
NEW TESTAMENT

BY

/

MARVIN R. VINCENT, D.D.

BALDWIN PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT EXEGESIS AND

LITERATURE IN UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

NEW YORK

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1899

All Hghts reserved

OOPYBIOHT, 1899,

Bt the macmillan company.

NorfajootJ l^ress

J. 8. Cuihing & Co. — Berwick l Smith
Norwood Matt. U.S.A.

PREFACE

This volume is simply what its title imports, — a
History of the Textual Criticism of the New Testa-
ment, in which the attempt is made to exhibit its
development in a form available for New Testament
students who have not given special attention to the
subject, and to direct such to the sources for more
detailed study, if they are so inclined. It is gathered
from sources which are indicated under the several
topics and which are well known to textual scholars.
The great interest awakened during the last few years
by the special discussions of the Codex Bezse has led
me to assign considerable space to these, and the
section on this subject has been prepared for this
volume by my valued friend and colleague and former
pupil, the Rev. James Everett Frame of Union Theo-
logical Seminary.

MARVIN R. VINCENT.

CONTENTS

PAET I

NATURE AND SOURCES OF THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

CHAPTER I

PAOE

Need and Office of Textual Criticism ... 1

Definition of a Text — Distinction between a Text
and a Copy — An Autograph not necessarily faultless

— Errors in Written Copies and their Causes — Num-
ber of Variations in New Testament Text.

CHAPTER II
The Manuscripts of the New Testament ... 8

Sources of Evidence for Restoration of New Testa-
ment Text — Uncials — Stichometry — Eusebian Can-
ons and Ammonian Sections — tItXol and K€<f)d\a.La —
Cursives — Mode of designating Uncials and Cursives

— Lectionaries — Palimpsests — The Five Primary
Uncials — Secondary Uncials.

CHAPTER III
Versions 24

Importance to Textual Criticism — Character of
their Evidence — Latin Versions : (1) Texts pre-
ceding Jerome ; (2) Jerome and the Vulgate —
Syriac Versions: (1) Peshitto ; (2) Cuntonian ;
vii

VllI CONTENTS

PASH

(3) Lewis Palimpsest and its Relations to Other
Syriac Versions ; (4) Philoxenian ; (5) Ilarclcan ;
(6) Karkaphensian — Egyptian Versions: (1) Mem-
phitic ; (2) Thebaic ; (3) Bashmuric — Ethiopia,
Armenian, and Gothic Versions.

CHAPTER IV

Patristic Quotations 36

Habits of Fathers in Quotation — Value of Patristic
Quotations and Caution in Using.

PART II

HISTORY OF THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW
TESTAMENT

CHAPTER V
Textual Criticism of the Early Church ... 42

Early Date of Corruptions — Allusions to Wilful
Corruptions in the Earlier Apologists — Lack of Care
in Preparation of Manuscripts — Harmonies — Reasons
for Delay in the Application of Printing to the New
Testament — History of the Printed Text and of the
Accompanying Development of Textual Criticism falls
into Three Periods : (1) Period of the Heign of the
Textus Receptus (1516-1770) ; (2) Transition Period
from Textus Receptus to Older Uncial Text (1770-
1830) ; (3) Period of Dethronement of Textus Re-
ceptus and Effort to restore the Oldest and Purest
Text by Means of the Genealogical Method (1830-
1899).

CHAPTER VI
First Period (1516-1770). The Complutensian Polt-

OLOT AND Erasmus's Greek Testament . . 48
The Complutensian Polyglot : (1) History ; (2)
Manuscripts used in Preparation of — Erasmus's First

CONTENTS IX

PJLGX

Edition of the Greek Testament : (1) Manuscripts
employed ; (2) Four Subsequent Editions — Greek
Testament of Colinseus.

CHAPTER VII
First Period (1516-1770). The Textus Receptus . 56

Robert Stephen — The Ten Editions of Beza — The
Antwerp Polyglot — Attention directed to Patristic
Quotations: (1) Lucas Brugensis ; (2) Hugo Gro-
tius — The Paris Polyglot — The Elzevirs — Origin of
the Term "Textus Receptus."

CHAPTER VIII

First Period (1516-1770). Beginnings of a Critical

Method 63

New Impulse given in England by Cod. A — In
France by Simon — Walton's Polyglot and its Criti-
cal Apparatus — Curcellseus's Greek Testament —
Fell's Greek Testament — Mill's New Testament —
Von Maestricht, Toinard, "Wells — Richard Bentley :
(1) Glimpse of the Genealogical Method ; (2) Bent-
ley's "Proposals;" (3) Collation of Manuscripts of
the Vulgate; (4) Contents of the "Proposals" —
William Mace.

CHAPTER IX

First Period (1516-1770). Movement toward the

Genealogical Method 76

Anticipatory Statement of Certain Principles of
Modern Textual Criticism — Bengel's Greek Testa-
ment: (1) Its Characteristics; (2) Division of An-
cient Documents into Families — J. J. Wetstein :
(1) Prolegomena published anonymously ; (2) Wet-
stein's Greek Testament — Solomon Semler — Review
of the First Period.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER X

PAOK

Second Period (1770-1830). Transition from the
Textus Receptus to the Older Uncial Text
— Griesbach 96

Ed. Harwood's Greek Testament — C. F. Matthsei

— F. K. Alter — Birch, Adler, Moldenhauer and
Tychsen — Slovenly Work of Moldenhauer and Tych-
sen — Griesbach: (1) His First Edition of the Greek
Testament ; (2) His Critical Materials ; (3) His
"Symbolse Criticte;" (4) Critical Conditions con-
fronted by him ; (5) His Classification of Families ;
(6) Some of his Critical Canons ; (7) His Text the
Basis of the Editions of Schott, Marker, Knapp, Titt-
mann, Halm, and Theile — Hug — Scholz.

CHAPTER XI

Second Period (1770-1830). The Successors of Gries-
bach 105

Hug — Scholz.

CHAPTER XII

Third Period (1830-81). Efforts for the Restora-
tion OF THE Primitive Text — Lachmann . 110

Lachmann : (1) First Attempt to construct a Text
directly from Ancient Documents ; (2) Editions of
his Greek Testament ; (3) Classification of Texts ;
(4) His Six Rules for estimating the Comparative
Weight of Readings; (5) Peculiarities and Faults;
(6) Table of some of his Readings compared with
those of Textus Receptus and Westcott and Hort —
Work of Hahn, Theile, Bloomfield, and Others.

CHAPTER XIII
Third Period (1830-81). Tischendorf . . .117

His Journeys to the East — Di-scovery of Cod. K

— Character and Value of this Codex — Attempts to

CONTEXTS XI

PAex
depreciate it — The "Editio Octava Critica Major"

— Tischendoi-f's Critical Principles — Relative Value
of Tischendorf's Results,

CHAPTER XIV
Third Period (1830-81). Tregelles . . . .130

Prospectus of Critical Edition of the Greek Testa-
ment—" Account of the Printed Text" — Edition
of the Greek Testament — Introduced the Method of
"Comparative Criticism" — His Critical Principles

— Tregelles and Tischendorf compared — Alford.

CHAPTER XV
Third Period (1830-81). Reaction toward the Tex-

TUS ReCEPTCS — SCRIVEXER AXD BuRGOX . . 139

Scrivener — His "New Testament according to the
Text of the Authorised Version with Variations of
the Revised Version" — His "Plain Introduction to
the Criticism of the New Testament " — His Critical
Principles — Burgon — T. S. Green — W. Kelly —
J. B. McClellan.

CHAPTER XVI

Third Period (1830-81). Westcott and Hort, and

Revisers' Text of 1881 145

Their Introduction — Their Critical Principles —
The Genealogical Method — Classification of Types
of Text — Criticisms of their Work — The Revised
Version of 1881.

CHAPTER XVn
Recent Contributions. Weiss — Studies in Codex D 167

B. Weiss's "Neue Testament" — Studies in the
Codex Bezse: (1) Theory of Latinisation ; (2) Theory

XU CONTENTS

PAQX

of Syriacisation ; (3) Theory of Jewish-Christian Ori-
gin ; (4) Theory of Two Editions of Acts and Luke ;
(6) Fr. Blass ; (6) Theory of Weiss ; (7) Theory of
Salmon — General Review.

APPENDIX
Additional Books of Reference 177

Index 181

A

HISTORY OF THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

9;^C

PART I

NATUKE Am SOUKOES OP THE TEXTUAL ORITIOISM
OP THE NEW TESTAMENT

CHAPTER I
THE NEED AND OFFICE OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Textual Criticism is that process by which it is introduc-
sought to determine the original text of a document J°ong^®^"^'
or of a collection of documents, and to exhibit it, freed
from all the errors, corruptions, and variations which
it may have accumulated in the course of its trans-
mission by successive copyings.

A text is the body of words employed by an author
in the composition of a document ; as by Thucydides,
in his History of the Peloponnesian War; by Dante in
the Divina Commedia ; or by Paul in the Epistle to
the Romans.

The word "text" is also applied to the body of
words which constitutes an edition of an original doc-
ument. Thus we speak of Lachmann's text of Lucre-
tius, or of Witte's text of the Divina Commedia, or
of Westcott and Hort^s text of Romans and Galatians.

B 1

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

The original
document
not neces-
sarily with-
out errors.

These editions may approximate more or less to the
texts of the original documents; but unless they ex-
actly reproduce those texts, they are not the texts of
Lucretius, of Dante, or of Paul. There can be but one
text of a document, and that is the body of words
written by the author himself. The text of a docu-
ment, accurately speaking, is that which is contained
in its autograph.

This is not to say that the autograph is without
error. When we speak of the original text of a docu-
ment, we mean only that it is what the author himself
wrote, including whatever mistakes the author may
have made. Every autograph is likely to contain such
mistakes. The most careful writer for the press, on
reading his work in print, often discov^ers omissions of
words, incomplete sentences, unconscious substitutions
of other words for those which he had intended to
write, careless constructions which make his meaning
ambiguous, or unintentional insertions of words which
materially modify the sense which he meant to con-
vey. These things are the results of lapses of atten-
tion or memory, or of temporary diversions of thought.
In the preparation of matter for the press, such errors
are mostly corrected by careful proof-reading ; but be-
fore the invention of printing, when hand-copying was
the only means of publication, they were much more
likely to be perpetuated.

It is entirely possible that a careful transcription of
a document by an intelligent and accurate scribe, a
transcription in which the errors of the original were
corrected, should have been really a better piece of
work than the autograph itself, and, on the whole,
more satisfactory to the author : only the revised copy
was not the original text.

The New Testament is no exception to this rule.
If the autographs of the Pauline Epistles, for instance,

the textual
critic.

NEED OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM 3

should be recovered, they wouhl no doubt be found to
contain errors such as have been described. "If we
consider that the authors themselves or their amanu-
enses in dictation may have made mistakes, and that
the former, in revision, may have introduced improve-
ments and additions, — the question arises whether
the text ever existed in complete purity at all, and
in what sense" (Reuss).^

The problem for the textual critic of the New Tes- Problem for
tament grows out of the fact that the New Testament
autographs have disappeared, and with them all copies
earlier than the middle of the fourth century. The
contents of the original manuscripts can, therefore,
be only approximately determined, through a com-
parison of later copies, all of which are more or less

1 Nothing can be more puerile or more desperate than the
effort to vindicate the divine inspiration of Scripture by the
assertion of the verbal inerrancy of the autographs, and to erect
that assertion into a test of orthodoxy. For : —

1. There is no possible means of verifying the assertion, since
the autogTaphs have utterly disappeared.

2. It assumes a mechanical dictation of the ipsissima verba
to the writers, which is contradicted by the whole character and
structure of the Bible.

3. It is of no practical value, since it furnishes no means of
deciding between various readings or discrepant statements.

4. It is founded upon a pure assumption as to the character
of inspiration — namely, that inspiration involves verbal iner-
rancy, which is the very thing to be proved, and which could
be proved only by producing inerrant autographs.

5. If a written, inspired revelation is necessary for mankind,
and if such a revelation, in order to be inspired, must be ver-
bally inerrant, the necessity has not been met. There is no
verbally inerrant, and therefore no inspired, revelation in writ-
ing. The autographs have vanished, and no divine guidance
or interposition has prevented mistakes in transcription or in
printing. The text of Scripture, in the best form in which
critical scholarship can exhibit it, presents numerous errors and
discrepancies.

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

An early
date does
uot prove
a purer text.

Causes of
copy'sts'
errors.

faulty, and which exhibit iiiimerous differences.
These copies have been made from other copies, and
these in turn from others. The critic has no evidence
that any copy in his possession has been made directly
from the original ; or, if there should be such a copy,
which one it is. Pages of the two oldost copies known
to us have evidently been written by the same scribe,
yet their differences show that both were not copied
from the same original. From the fact that a manu-
script is of very early date, it cannot be assumed that
its text is correspondingly purer, that is, more nearly
approaching the autograph. It must first be settled
how many copies there are between it and the auto-
graph, and whether it followed an earlier or a later
copy, and whether the copy which it followed cor-
rectly represented the autograph or not. A fourth-
century manuscript, for instance, may have been cop-
ied from one only a few years earlier than itself;
while an eleventh-century manuscript may have been
copied from one of the third century, and that in turn
from the autograph ; so that the later manuscript may
exhibit a purer text than the earlier. Let it be borne
in mind that the critic is searching, not for the oldest
manuscript, but for the oldest text.

In the multiplication of written copies errors were
inevitable. Every new copy was a new source of
error, since a copyist was likely not only to transcribe
the errors of his exemplar, but also to make additional
mistakes of his own. These errors might be conscious
or unconscious, intentional or unintentional. A scribe,
for example, might confuse two capital letters of simi.
lar appearance, as G, C (t) ; 0, 0. Or the similarity
of two letters might cause him to overlook the one and
pass directly to the other, as TTPOeAOQN for TTPOC-
GAOfiN. Or letters might be transposed, as CPlAN
(a-wT-qptav) for CPAIN {(TtoTrjpa Irjaovv). Again, if two

NEED OF TEXTUAL CEITICI8M 5

consecutive lines in the exemplar ended with the same
word or syllable, the copyist's eye might catch the
second line instead of the first, and he would omit the
intermediate words. In the early days of the church
many copies were made hurriedly, and mistakes were Careless-
sure to arise from hasty transcription. So long as the °®^^"
scribe confined himself to the purely mechanical work
of copying, the errors would be chiefly those of sight,
hearing, or memory ; when he began to think for him-
self, more mischief was done. The working of his
own mind on the subject might move him to introduce
a word which did not appear in his exemplar. He
might find in the margin of his exemplar some oral
tradition, like the story of the angel who troubled the
pool of Bethzatha ; or some liturgical fragment, like
the doxology of the Lord's Prayer ; or some explana- Interpola-
tory comment, and incorporate these into the text. ^^^'
There were many who would have the books of ap-
proved authors in a fuller rather than in a shorter
form, through fear of losing something of what the
author had said. Bengel remarks, "Many learned
men are not easily persuaded to regard anything as
superfluous." Person ^ says that, so far from its being
an affected or absurd idea that a marginal note can
ever creep into the text, it has actually happened in
millions of places. Again, a scribe might alter a text Deliberate
in one Gospel in order to make it conform to a parallel * ®^* ^°"'
passage in another ; or he might change an unclassical
word or expression for a more classical one. Such
things would be fruitful sources of variation.^

1 Letters to Travis.

2 The causes of variation will be found treated in detail in
Scrivener's Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament,
4th ed., I, 7-19. Also in Schaff's Companion to the Greek
Testament, 183, and the excellent little treatise of C. E. Ham-
mond, Textual Criticism Applied to the New Testament.

6

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Number of
actual vari-
atiuDS.

Mode of
counting va-
riations.

It will be seen, therefore, that the task of the text-
ual critic is no easy one. As early as 1707, Dr. Mill
estimated the number of variations in the New Testa-
ment text at 30,000 ; but this estimate was based on
a comparatively few manuscripts. To-day, the num-
ber of Greek manuscripts discovered and catalogued,
and containing the whole or portions of the New Testa-
ment, is estimated at 3829, and the number of actual
variations in existing documents is reckoned roughly
from 150,000 to 200,000.i

This, however, does not mean that there is that
number of places in the New Testament where various
readings occur. It merely represents the sum total of
various readings, each variation being counted as
many times as it appears in different documents.
For instance, taking some given standard and com-
paring a number of documents with it, we find at one
place in the first document compared four variations
from the standard. In the second document, at the
same place, we find three of these variations repeated,
and two more which are not in the first document.
We count, then, nine variations; that is, the three
variations common to the two documents are counted
twice. In a third document, in the same place, we
find all of the last three and two new ones. This
gives us fourteen in all, the three being counted over
again, and so on through any number of documents.
In other words, " Each place where a variation occurs
is counted as many times over, not only as distinct
variations occur upon it, but also as the same variation
occurs in different manuscripts." ^ The sum total of
these variations, moreover, includes even the unique

1 See Nestle, Einfiihrung in das Griechische Neue Testa-
ment^ 23.

2 Dr. Warfield, Textual Criticism of the Nexo Testament^
13.

NEED OF TEXTUAL CRITICISM 7

reading of a single inferior document and the trifling
variations in spelling.^

The work of the textual critic is to push back, as Work and
nearly as possible, to the author's own draft, and to the textual
present the ipsissima verba of his text. His method critic,
is to trace the various readings to their sources, to
date and classify the sources, to ascertain which of
these classes or families most nearly approaches the
autograph, and to weigh the reasons which are most
likely to have determined different readings.^

1 The vagt number of variations furnishes no cause for alarm
to the devout reader of the New Testament. It is the natural
result of the great number of documentary sources. A very
small proportion of the variations materially affects the sense,
a much smaller proportion is really important, and no variation
affects an article of faith or a moral precept. Dr. Hort reckons
the amount of what can, in any sense, be called substantial
variation, as hardly more than a thousandth part of the entire
text. (See Westcott and Hort's Greek Testament, Introduc-
tion, 2.)

2 "It is quite likely that some of the variations may have
been due to changes introduced by the author himself into
copies within his reach, after his manuscript had gone into
circulation. These copies, circulating independently of those
previously issued, would become the parents of a new family
of copies, and would originate diversities from the original
manuscript without any fault on the part of the transcribers "
(Scrivener, Introduction, etc., I, 18, note).

CHAPTER II
THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

All extant
New Testa-
ment manu-
scripts
written on
vellum.

Uncials.

The evidence by which the New Testament text is
examined and restored is gathered from three sources :
Manuscripts, Versions, and Patristic Quotations.

The earliest manuscripts of the New Testament, writ-
ten on papyrus, have all perished, with the exception
of a few scraps, not earlier than the earliest vellum
manuscripts. All the extant manuscripts are written
on vellum or parchment. Vellum was made from the
skins of young calves ; the common parchment from
those of sheep, goats, or antelopes.

The extant Greek manuscripts are mostly of late
date, and contain only portions of the New Testament.
They are of two classes: Uncials, or Majuscules, and
Cursives, or Minuscules.

Uncials are written in capital letters. Each letter is
formed separately, and there are no divisions between
the words.^ In form, these manuscripts resemble
printed books, varying in size from large folio to octavo,
and smaller. The pages contain one or two, rarely three
or four, columns. Breathings and accents very rarely

1 The word " uncial'' is derived from nncia, meaning the
twelfth part of anything; hence, "an ounce," "an inch." It
does not mean that the letters were an inch in length. There
are very small uncials, as on the papyrus rolls of Herculaneum.
The term is commonly traced to Jerome (preface to Job) : " Un-
cialibus, ut vulgo aiunt, litteris, onera magis exarata, quam
codices." It is thought by some, however, that Jerome wrote
" initialibus " instead of " uncialibus. "

8

NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS 9

occur, unless inserted by a later hand. In the earliest
manuscripts punctuation is confined to a single point Punctuation
here and there on a level with the top of the letters, and omet^ry^^'
occasionally a small break, with or without the point,
to denote a pause in the sense. Later, the single point
is found indiscriminately at the head, middle, or foot
of the letter. In the year 458 Euthalius, a deacon of
Alexandria, published an edition of the Epistles of
Paul, and soon after of the Acts and Catholic Epistles,
written stichometrically, that is, in single lines contain-
ing only so many words as could be read, consistently
with the sense, at a single inspiration.^ This mode of
writing was used long before in copying the poetical
books of the Old Testament. It involved, however,
a great waste of parchment, so that, in manuscripts
of the New Testament, it was superseded after a few
centuries by punctuation-marks. Divisions of the text
were early made for various purposes. In the third Harmonistic
century Ammonius of Alexandria prepared a Harmony
of the Gospels, taking the text of Matthew as the basis,

1 Thus 1 Cor. 10 : 23-26, stichometrically in English, would
read as follows: —

All things are lawful for me
but all things are not expedient
all things are lawful for me
but all things edify not
let no man his own seek
("seek," ^TjTeiTu, divided because of lack
of space, and Tftrw forms a line by itself)
but that of the other
every thing that in the shambles is
sold (^rru\ovfji€Pov divided)
eat nothing ask-
ing for the sake of the
conscience

for the Lord's is the earth {Kvpiov abbreviated, kv.) and the ful-
ness of it.

divisions.

10

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Eixsebian
sections and
canons.

Notation of
canons.

and placing by its side in parallel columns the similar
passages in the other Gospels. This, of course, destroyed
the continuity of their narrative. Euse])ius of Caesarea,
in the early part of the fourth century, availing him-
self of the work of Ammonius, devised a method
of comparing the parallel passages not open to this
objection. He divided the text of each Gospel into
sections, the length of which was determined solely
by their relation of parallelism or similarity to pas-
sages in one or more of the other Gospels, or by their
having no parallel. Thus, Section 8 of Matthew con-
tains one verse. Matt. 3 : 3. This is parallel with Sec. 2
of Mark (Mk. 1 : 3), Sec. 7 of Luke, (Luke 3 : 3-6),
Sec. 10 of John (J. 1 : 23). Again, Sec. 5 of Luke
(L. 2 ; 48-52) has no parallel.

These sections were then numbered consecutively
in the margin, and distributed into ten tables or
canons. Canon I contained the sections correspond-
ing in the four Gospels ; Canon II the sections corre-
sponding in Matthew, Mark, and Luke; Canon III,
Matthew, Luke, John; Canon IV, Matthew, Mark,
John. Then canons of the sections corresponding in
two Gospels. Canon V, Matthew and Luke ; Canon VI,
Matthew and Mark ; Canon VII, Matthew and John ;
Canon VIII, Mark and Luke; Canon IX, Luke and
(John; Canon X, sections peculiar to one Gospel only.

Under the number of each section in the margin of
the several Gospels, which sections were numbered in
black ink, there was written in red ink the number of
the canon to which it belonged. These were tabu-
lated. Suppose, for instance, we find in the margin

of Matt. 4:1, —, = ^' that is to say the 16th sec-
tion may be found in the 2d canon. Turning to this
canon, we find that the 15th section in Matthew corre-
sponds to the 6th section in Mark and the 16th in

NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS 11

Luke. Turning to the margins of Mark and Luke,
we find that Sec. 6 in Mark is Mark 1 : 12, and Sec. 15
in Luke is Luke 4 : 1. Thus the harmony is : Matt.
4:1; Mk. 1:12; Luke 4 : 1.

The earliest manuscript in which the Eusebian sec- Earliest oc-
tions and canons are found is the Sinaitic, where eauons*!^ ^^
they were added, according to Tischendorf, by a very
early hand. They are found also in Codex A. Some
manuscripts have the sections without the canons.-^

Another ancient mode of division, ascribed by some
to Tatian, the harmonist, is the division of the Gospels
into chapters called tltXol, because a title or summary "Titles."
of the contents of each chapter is appended to the
numeral which designates it. A table of these
chapters was usually prefixed to each Gospel. It is
noticeable that, in each of the Gospels, the designa-
tion and enumeration begins with what should be the
second section. Thus, the first title in Matthew begins
with the second chapter, and is prefaced with the
words Trept tcuv /xaywv (about the Magi). In Mark the
first title begins at 1 : 23, ttc/oi tov Sat/xovt^o/xevov (about
the man possessed with a demon). In Luke, at 2 : 1,
Trepi Tr}<i a7roypa(f>r)s (about the enrolment). In John, at
2 : 1, TTcpt TOV €v Kava yafxov (about the marriage in
Cana). The reason for this is not apparent. It has
been suggested that, in the first copies, the titles at
the head of each Gospel were reserved for specially
splendid illumination and were forgotten; but this
would not explain why the second chapter was
numbered as the first.

There may also be noticed a division of the Acts Chapters.

1 The original authority on this subject is the Epistle of
Eusebius to Carpianus, which may be found in Tischendorf' s
Neio Testament. Ill, 145. The canons of Eusebius are tabu-
lated in Bagster's large type Greek Testament, and the refer-
ences to them are noted in the margin of the text.

12

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

and Epistles into Kce^oAaia or chapters, to answer the
same purpose as the tlt\ol of the Gospels. These are
! of later date and of uncertain origin. They do not

occur in A and C (fifth century), which exhibit the
TiVAot, the sections, and one of them (A) the canons.

They are sometimes connected with the name of Eu-
thalius, deacon of Alexandria, the reputed author of
the system of stichometry. That he used them is cer-
tain, but he probably derived them from some one else.
Modern ^"^ present division into chapters is commonly

division into ascribed to Cardinal Hugo, a Dominican monk of the
ap ers. thirteenth century, who used it for his Concordance
of the Latin Vulgate. There are better grounds for
ascribing it to Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canter-
bury (ob. 1228).

The presence or absence of these divisions is im-
portant in determining the date of a manuscript.
Thus, in seeking to fix the date of the Codex Alexan-
drinus, the absence of the Euthalian divisions of the
Acts and Epistles would point to a date not later than
the middle of the fifth century ; while the insertion of
the Eusebian Canons would lead us to assign a date
not earlier than the latter half of the fourth century.^
Cursive manuscripts are written in smaller letters,
in a running hand, the letters being connected and the
words separated. In the earliest cursives the system
of punctuation closely resembles that of printed books.
Uncial manuscripts are the earlier, from the fourth
to the ninth century ; while cursives range from the
ninth to the fifteenth. Some cursives are older than

Significance
of these
divisions to
criticism.

Cursives.

1 For divisions of the text, see article "Bible Text," in the
Schaff-Herzog Encyclopoedia, by 0. von Gebhardt, revised and
largely rewritten by Ezra Abbot. On stichometry, two articles
by J. Rendel Harris, American Juurnal of Philology, 1883, p. 31,
and Stichometry, 1893. See also Scrivener, Introduction, etc.,
I, 60-67.

NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS 13

some uncials. In papyrus manuscripts, however,
uncial and cursive writing are found side by side
from the earliest times at which Greek writing is
known to us, the third century b.c. In the ninth
century an ornamental style of running hand was in-
vented, which superseded the use of uncials in books.
As a general rule, the upright, square, and simple
uncials indicate an earlier date. Narrow, oblong,
slanting characters, ornamentation, and initial letters
of larger size than the rest, are marks of later date.

The following are specimens of cursive manu-
scripts : —

Codex Burney, 13th century. John 21 : 18.

y V * ^C"^, ® "^ •* ■'^ i ** *'^'**^ •^ *** ^ ^*'XV * V .
TvuA H AAJkfiaxjuj €txfrw(\0Lrr^y^»JOLnrtl<njLevt'

Copy of Pauline Epistles, Emmanuel College, Cambridge,
12th century. Rom. 5 : 21-6 : 7.

14

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Before the books were gathered into one collection,
they were arranged in four groups : Gospels, Acts and
Catholic Epistles, Pauline Epistles, and Apocalypse.
Most manuscripts contain only one, or at most two, of
these groups. For the purpose of reference, uncials
are distinguished by capital letters of the Latin, Greek,
or Hebrew alphabets, as B, A, K. Cursives are desig-
nated simply by numbers, as Evan. 100, signifying
^^ cursive manuscript of the Gospels, No. 100." If
a cursive manuscript contains more than one of the
groups above mentioned, it appears in different lists,
and with a different number in each. Thus, a cursive
of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum,
containing all the four groups, is described as Evan.
498, Acts 198, P. 255, Ap. 97. An uncial like «,
whose readings run through the whole New Testa-
ment, is quoted everywhere by the same letter; but
B, in which the Apocalypse is wanting, is assigned to
the Codex Basilianus of the Apocalypse (Bg). D, in
the Gospels and Acts, designates Codex Bezse; but
in the Pauline Epistles, Codex Claromontanus (Dg).
The cursive manuscripts, with a few exceptions, are
rarely quoted as authorities for the text. Their
importance is chiefly in showing which of two read-
ings, where the leading uncials are divided, has been
adopted in the great mass of later copies.

In the whole number of manuscripts must be in-
cluded the Lectionaries. The ordinary manuscripts
were often adapted for church service by marking the
beginning and end of each lesson with a note in the
margin, indicating the time and occasion for reading
it, and by prefixing to them a Synaxarion, or table of
lessons in their order; sometimes silso sl Menologion,
or calendar of the immovable festivals and the saints'
days, with their appropriate lessons. Separate collec-
tions were also made of lessons from the New Testa-

NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS 15

ment prescribed to be read during the church year.
These lessons are arranged in chronological order,
without regard to their places in the New Testament,
like the Gospels and Epistles in the Book of Common
Prayer. Lectionaries containing lessons from the
Gospels were called cmyyeXto-rapia or, popularly,
cvayycAta. Those containing lessons from the Acts
and Epistles were termed d-n-oaToXoL or Trpa^aTroaroXoi.
A few, containing lessons from both the Gospels and the
Acts and Epistles, were styled dTroa-ToAoewyyeAta. The
uncial character was, in some cases, retained in these
collections, after cursive writing had become common,
so that it is not always easy to fix their date without
other indications ; but the most of the Lectionaries
are in the cursive character. There are no extant
Lectionaries in Greek earlier than the eighth century,
or earlier than the sixth century in Syriac ; but the
lectionary system is much older. Their evidence is
especially important in determining the canonicity
of a passage, since it is the evidence, not of individ-
uals, but of churches, and shows that the church in a
certain district believed the passage to be a part of
inspired Scripture.

As parchment was a costly material, an old manu-
script was often used for the second time, the original
writing being erased by means of a sponge, a knife,
or a piece of pumice-stone, and new matter written
over it. Such manuscripts are called Palimpsests, or
Codices Rescripti. A parchment was sometimes used
three times over.^ It has been found possible, by the
application of chemicals, to restore the letters of the
original manuscript. A notable instance is the restora- A notable
tion of Codex Ephraemi (C), in the National Library Palimpsest.
at Paris, in which the works of the Syrian Father,

1 See Scrivener, Introduction, etc., I, 141,

16 TEXTUAL CBITICI8M

Ephraem, were written over the original New Testa-
ment text. The original writing was brought to light
by the librarian, Carl Hase, in 1834-35, by the appli-
cation of the Giobertine tincture (prussiate of potash).
It was edited by Tischendorf in 1843-45.^

We shall notice the five primary uncials, so called

from their age and importance.

Codex Sinai- Codex Sinaiticus ()<) : probably about the middle of

ticus (n). ^YiQ fourth century. Now in the Imperial Library at

St. Petersburg. It was discovered by Tischendorf in

1859, in the Convent of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai.

The following is Tischendorf's own description of
the discovery. " On the afternoon of this day (Feb.
7, 1859) I was taking a walk with the steward of the
convent in the neighborhood, and as we returned
toward sunset, he begged me to take some refresh-
The story of ment with him in his cell. Scarcely had he entered
covery. *^^® room when, resuming our former subject of con-

versation, he said, ' And I, too, have read a Septuagint ; '
and so saying he took down from the corner of the room
a bulky kind of volume wrapped up in a red cloth,
and laid it before me. I unrolled the cover, and dis-
covered, to my great surprise, not only those very
fragments which, fifteen years before, I had taken out
of the basket, but also other parts of the Old Testa-
ment, the New Testament complete, and, in addition,
the Epistle of Barnabas, and a part of the Pastor of

1 On palimpsests, see Scrivener, Introduction, etc., I, 25,
141; Tischendorf, New Testament, III, 366; Mrs. Agnes Lewis,
The Four Gospels translated from the Sinaitic Palimpsest.
For a full description of the New Testament manuscripts, the
reader will consult the Prolegomena to Tischendorf's larger
eighth edition of his Greek Testament, in the third volume,
prepared by Dr. Caspar R. Gregory, and Scrivener's Introduc-
tion to the Criticism of the Neio Testament, I. A compendious
description will be found in the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopcxdia,
article "Bible Text," by von Gebhardt.

NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS 17

Hermas. Full of joy, which this time I had the self-
command to conceal from the steward and the rest of
the community, I asked, as if in a careless way, for
permission to take the manuscript into my sleeping-
chamber to look it over more at leisure. ... I knew
that I held in my hand the most precious biblical
treasure in existence — a document whose age and im-
portance exceeded that of all the manuscripts which
I had ever examined during twenty years' study of
the subject. . . . Though my lamp was dim and
the night cold, I sat down at once to transcribe the
Epistle of Barnabas. For two centuries search has
been made in vain for the original Greek of the first
part of this Epistle, which has been known only
through a very faulty Latin translation. And yet this
letter, from the end of the second dow n to the beginning
of the fourth century, had an extensive authority,
since many Christians assigned to it and to the Pastor
of Hermas a place side by side with the inspired
writings of the New Testament. This was the very
reason why these two writings were both thus bound
up with the Sinaitic Bible, the transcription of which
is to be referred to the first half of the fourth century
and about the time of the first Christian emperor." "^

The New Testament text of the Sinaitic Codex is Character of
complete. The original text has been corrected in * ® ^° ®^"
many places. The Eusebian sections are indicated
in the margin of the Gospels in a hand evidently con-
temporaneous with the text. The Codex is 13i inches
broad by 14J inches high, and consists of 346|- leaves
of beautiful vellum, of which 199 contain portions
of the Septuagint Version, and 147 J the New Testa-
ment, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the fragment of
the Shepherd of Hermas. Each page has four col-

1 See further under Tischendorf in the history of the printed
text.

18 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

umns, with forty-eight lines in each column. The
poetical books of the Old Testament, being written
stichometrically, admit of only two columns on a page.
In the order of the books, Paul's Epistles precede the
Acts. The Epistle to the Hebrews stands with the
Pauline letters and follows 2 Thessalonians. There
are no breathings or accents, and marks of punctuation
are scanty. Words are divided at the end of a line,
as the K from ov in ovk. The numerous corrections which
disfigure the Codex are mostly due to later hands of
the sixth and seventh centuries and later. A few
appear to have been made by the original scribe.
Codex Vati- Codex Vaticamis (B). Fourth century. Generally
canus (B). i-egarded as slightly older than K. It is in the Vatican
Library at Rome. Contains the Septuagint Version
of the Old Testament, with some gaps, and the New
Testament to Hebrews 9 : 14, inclusive. The Pas-
toral Epistles, Philemon, and the Apocalypse are lost.
The Catholic Epistles had followed the Acts. It is a
quarto volume, arranged in quires of five sheets or ten
leaves each, and is written on thin vellum made of
the skins of antelopes. It is 10^ inches high, 10
inches broad, and 4^ thick. It has three columns
to a page, except in the poetical books of the Old
Testament, which are written stichometrically, and in
which there are two columns to a page. Its antiquity
is attested by the absence of divisions into Ke(f>dKaLa
and of sections and canons, instead of which it has a
scheme of chapters or sections of its own, which seem
to have been formed for the purpose of reference. A
Divisions of new section always begins where there is some break
the text in g ^^ ^^^q sense, and many of those in the Gospels consist
of but one of our modern verses. The Gospel of
Matthew contains 170 of these divisions, Mark 62,
Luke 152, and John 80. In the Acts are two sets of
sections, thirty-six longer and in an oldOT hand, sixty-

nn>:

< Z <

it

1 -. :

< Y ::? 0 <

V .- - .^ r

u r

w (J

I

h ^ f

t3 Z t^

orii

^ Z

^t

^ %

< 'J

^1

c -<

w "^ "^

z
<

-< - 5

r <

N > 5 d c ;

J z

■ w • T . r _. ^ -/

■e-'T C <^r

- 3:

> ^ S - r

•<> ^ I ~ ^

< zz

:/. 'w- w

h ^ ^--^

9

I

-, ft- I" ^ ^

r ■< 'i = 5

^i^'

I -

- 7 •< :>

?.= ?,:<??? 5

I I 2 <'^
+^

2 Z

^ T - -
-< C T :- -

^ - c r -
< r c-

rwC'ri£^r;^u<rz~::2>l
^-<^z>-.~z^r-<2rrTZ

~ ^ ^ >-

2 i t ^ - ^i^ y ^r «-

NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS 19

nine smaller and more recent. Each of these also
begins after a break in the sense ; but they are quite
independent of each other, as a larger section will
sometimes commence in the middle of a smaller, the
latter not being a subdivision of the former. In the
Catholic Epistles and in the Pauline Epistles there are
two sets of sections, but in the Epistles the older sec-
tions are the more numerous. The breathings and
accents have been added by a later hand, according
to Tischendorf and Hort, of the tenth or eleventh
century. This hand appears to have traced the faint
lines of the original writing; and the writer, being
anxious at the same time to represent a critical re-
vision of the text, left untouched such words or letters
as he wished to reject. These untouched places enable
us to see the Codex in its primitive condition.

Attempts to examine and collate this codex were Editions
for many years baffled by the custodians of the Vatican °^ ^•
Library and the authorities of the Roman Church.^
Roman Catholic scholars undertook the work which
they refused to allow others to do. An edition by
Cardinal Mai was issued in 1857, but it was full of
faults, so that it never could be used with confidence.
A grudging and limited permission to Tischendorf to
consult the Codex enabled him to issue, in 1867, an
edition superior to any that had preceded it. The
edition of the ISTew Testament by Vercellone and
Cozza appeared in 1868, and was complete and criti-
cal, though not without errors. A splendid edition
was issued in 1889, under the care of Abbate Cozza-
Luzi, in which the entire text was exhibited in photo-
graph.

Codex Alexandrinus (A). Fifth century. In the Codex Alex-
British Museum, where it was placed at the founda- andrinus

1 See under Tischendorf and Tregelles in the history of the
printed text.

20

TEXTUAL CBJTICISM

Character of
the codex.

Capitaliza
tion and
divisions
of A.

tion of the library of that institution in 1753, having
previously belonged to the king's private collection
from the year 1628, when it was sent by Cyril Lucar,
Patriarch of Constantinople, as a gift to Charles I.
An old Arabic inscription on the first leaf states that
it was written by the hand of Thecla the Martyr.
The Codex is bound in four volumes, three of which
contain the Septuagint Version of the Old Testament
with some gaps, amounting to nearly six hundred
verses. The fourth volume contains the New Testa-
ment. The whole of Matthew's Gospel to 25 : 6 is
missing, 'together with John 6 : 50-8 : 52, and 2 Cor.
4 : 13-12 : 6. After the Apocalypse is found what
was until very recently the only known extant copy
of the first or genuine Epistle of Clement of Kome,
and a small fragment of a second of suspected authen-
ticity. It would appear that these two Epistles were
designed to form a part of the volume of Scripture,
being represented in the table of contents under the
head H KAINH AIA©HKH. To these are added the
eighteen Psalms of Solomon as distinct from Scripture.
The Codex is in quarto, 12J inches high and 10^
broad, and consists of 773 leaves. Each page contains
two columns of fifty or fifty-one lines each. The
uncials are of an elegant but simple form, in a uni-
form hand, though in some places larger than in
others. The punctuation, which no later hand has
meddled with, consists merely of a point placed at
the end of a sentence, usually on a level with the top
of the preceding letter. A vacant space follows the
point at the end of a paragraph, the space being
proportioned to the break in the sense. Capital letters
of various sizes, written in common ink, are found at
the beginning of books and sections. These capitals
stand in the margin entirely outside of the column ;
so that if the section begins in the middle of a line,

NEW TESTAMENT MANU8CBIPTS 21

the capital is postj^oned until the beginning of the
next line, the first letter of which is always the capi-
tal, even though it be in the middle of a word. The
first line of Mark, the first three of Luke, the first
verse of John, the opening of the Acts down to Si,
and so on for other books, are in vermilion.

This is the first Codex which has K€<f>a\aLa proper,
the Ammonian sections and the Eusebian canons
complete.

Codex Ephraemi (C). Eifth century. In the National Codex
Library at Paris. It was brought into Erance by (c).^^^°^^
Catherine de' Medici. It is a palimpsest, the ancient
writing having been removed about the twelfth cen-
tury in order to transcribe the works of Ephraem, the
Syrian Eather. An attempt to recover the original
writing by the application of a chemical preparation,
in 1834, defaced the vellum with stains of various .
colors. The older writing was first noticed nearly two
centuries ago. A collation of the New Testament
was made by Wetstein in 1716 ; but the first thorough
collation was by Tischendorf in 1843.

The Codex originally contained the whole Greek
Bible. Only sixty-four leaves remain of the Old
Testament. Of the New Testament ninety-three
leaves are missing. Those which remain contain Contents
portions of every book except 1 Thessalonians and °^ ^•
2 John. There is but one column to a page, con-
taining from forty to forty-six lines. The characters
are larger and more elaborate than those of A or B.
Tlie punctuation resembles that of A. The Ammonian
sections stand in the margin, but the chemical appli-
cations have not revealed the Eusebian canons.
These canons were commonly noted in vermilion, and
lines of the text written in vermilion have been com-
pletely obliterated. There is no trace of chapters in
the Acts, Epistles, or Apocalypse. In the Gospels the

22

TEXTUAL CBITICISM

Codex Bezae

(D).

Divisions
of D.

Ke(f>d\aLa are not placed in the upper margin of tlie
page as in A, but a list of their tItXol preceded each
Gospel. Two correctors have handled the Codex,
possibly of the sixth and ninth centuries.

Codex Bezae or Cantabrigiensis (D). Sixth century.
In the Library of the University of Cambridge. It is
named from Theodore Beza, who presented it to the
University in 1581. It contains only the Gospels and
Acts, and is the first example of a copy in two lan-
guages, giving a Latin version in addition to the
Greek text. It is marked by numerous interpolations
and departures from the normal text, and on this
account some critics refuse to place it among the
primary uncials. It originally contained the Catholic
Epistles between the Gospels and the Acts, and in
the Latin translation a few verses of 3 John remain,
followed by the words " Epistulse Johannis iii
explicit, incipit actus Apostolorum," as if the Epistle
of Jude were displaced or wanting. It is a quarto
volume, ten inches high and eight broad, with
one column on a page, the Greek text being on the
left-hand page, and the Latin facing it on the right.
There are thirty-three lines on every page, the matter
being arranged stichometrically. It has not the
Eusebian canons, but only the Ammonian sections.
It has suffered at the hands of nine or ten different
revisers. The margins of the church lessons for
Saturday and Sunday contain liturgical notes in thick
letters. A few others for the great feasts and fast
days occur, and, in a hand of about the twelfth cen-
tury, lessons for the festivals of St. George and St.
Dionysius, the patron saints of England and France.^

1 Among the secondary uncials the most important are : D2,
Codex Claromontanus, second half of the sixth century, National
Library at Paris, Greek and Latin, contains the Pauline Epistles
and the Epistle to the Hebrews. E2, sixth century. Codex Lau-

i; -^ a
-so

^ ;:; I-)

NEW TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS 2S

dianus, Bodleian Library at Oxford, Greek and Latin, contains
the Acts. L, Codex llegius, eighth century, National Library
at Paris, contains the Gospels complete : a very ancient text.
T", Codex Borgianus, fifth century, Propaganda at Rome, Greek
and Coptic, contains 179 verses of Luke and John. Dr. Hort
ranks it next after B and X for excellence of text. Z, Codex
Dubliuensis, palimpsest, sixth century, Trinity College, Dub-
lin, contains 295 verses of Matthew, in tvt^enty-two fragments ;
agrees v^ith K rather than with B. A, Codex Sangallensis, ninth
century, library of the monastery of St. Gall in the northeast
of Switzerland, Gospels nearly complete ; a Latin interlinear
translation. The text in Mark is of the same type as L.
S, Codex Zacynthius, eighth century, palimpsest, in the Library
of the British and Foreign Bible Society in London, contains
342 verses of Luke's Gospel. Dr. Hort places it next to T*.
A continuous commentary by different authors (catena) accom-
panies the text. Scrivener says this is the earliest known —
indeed, the only — uncial furnished with a catena.

CHAPTER III

VERSIONS

Versions.

Worth of
versions in
textual
criticism.

Versions of the New Testament writings were de-
manded early by the rapid spread of the Gospel to the
Syrians, Egyptians, and the Latin-speaking people
of Africa, Italy, and the west of Europe. Transla-
tions into Syriac and Latin were made in the second
century, and later into Coptic, when Alexander's con-
quest opened Egypt.

Versions are important in textual criticism because
they are earlier than extant manuscripts, because their
ages are known, and because they are, generally, au-
thorised translations, made either by a body of men,
or by a single recognised and accepted authority.
Versions may indeed have suffered in the course of
transmission, but when the ancient versions accord, it
is reasonable to conclude that in such passages they
have not suffered.

On the other hand, their evidence is less direct than
that of manuscripts, since we must translate them
back into their originals in any case of doubt. They
have been transmitted in manuscripts, just as the
Greek original has been, and are liable to the same
accidents which have affected the Greek text. They
have undergone similar textual corruptions. No man-
uscript copy of a version is earlier than the fourth
century. Therefore it may be found as difficult to
arrive at the primitive text of a version as of the
Greek original. Some versions, moreover, are second-
24

VERSIONS 25

ary, derived from other versions of the Greek ; and
some merely give the sense, without attempting ver-
bal renderings.

Versions by themselves, therefore, cannot establish Office of
any reading. They can only supplement manuscript criticism!'^
evidence. If an ancient version accords with a very
early Greek manuscript in some particular reading,
the evidence is weighty as to the early prevalence of
that reading ; and if this testimony is supported by a
second version, its weight is greatly increased. If we
are sure of the original words of a Syriac or Latin
translation, we may have a reasonably correct idea of
the words of a Greek text extant in the first half of
the second century. On the omission of words and
clauses the testimony of versions is as clear as that of
original manuscripts. It must be noted, further, that
the value of a version's evidence at certain points will
depend somewhat on the character of the language
into which the Greek is rendered. For instance, a
Latin version would seldom testify to the presence or
absence of the Greek article.

I . Latin Versions. — A comparison of the Old Latin Latin ver-
texts, previous to Jerome's version, indicates that they
all are offshoots from one, or at most two, parent
stocks.

One of the several recensions current toward the
end of the fourth century was known as Itala. It
was for a long time thought that it originated in
Africa in the second half of the second century.^

Three groups of Old Latin manuscripts are recog-
nised, each representing a distinct type of text: (1)
African, agreeing generally with quotations in Ter-

1 See Cardinal Wiseman, Two Lectures on Some Parts of the
Controversy concerning 1 John 5 : 7. Republished in Essays
on Various Subjects, I, 1853, Rome. Later scholarship has
become less confident as to the African origin.

26

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Jerome's
revision.

tullian and Cyprian ; (2) European, either independent
or based on the African ; (3) Italian, formed on the
European type, and revised with the aid of later
Greek manuscripts. Many of the Old Latin manu-
scripts, however, present texts which cannot be as-
signed to either of these classes. At the end of the
fourth century there was so much variation in exist-
ing texts that Jerome was requested by Pope Damasus
to undertake a revision. His labour was expended
chiefly on the Old Testament. In all parts of the
New Testament, except the Gospels, his revision was
cursory. The texts which precede his version remain
to us only in fragments, and are to be gathered, largely,
from citations by the Fathers. These patristic cita-
tions may be found, not only in writings composed
before Jerome, but also in later compositions, since a
long time elapsed before Jerome's work obtained gen-
eral currency. Down to the end of the sixth century
different texts were used at the writer's pleasure. Ac-
cordingly we find in some exclusively an old text, in
others only Jerome's version, while others again em-
ploy both.^

1 Some idea of tlie differences may be gained from the follow-
ing parallels, the variations from Jerome's version being desig-
nated by italics : —

Romans 10:9

lREN,t;U8

Jbromb
quia si confitearis In
ore tuo Dominum Je-
»um, et in corde tuo cre-
dlderls quod Dens ilium
•uscitavlt a mortuis, sal-
Tug erls.

Jeromb
Idee enlm et tributa
prsBStatis ; mlniatri enim
Del sunt, in hoc Ipsum
Ber\ient«8.

quoniam sl confltea-
ris In ore tuo Dominum
Josum et credideris
in corde tuo quoniam
Deus Ilium excitavit a
mortuis, salvus erls.

Romans 13 : 6

Iken^ds
Propter hoc enlm et
tributa penditia ; ralnl-
stri enim Del sunt fn hoc
Ipsum servlentes.

Hilary op Poitiers

quia si confessuft fu-
eris In ore tuo, quia
Dominus Jesus est, et
credideris in corde tuo,
quia Deus ilium Buscita-
vlt a mortuis, salvaheris.

Augustine
Ideo (elsewhere prop-
ter hoc) enim et tributa
prflCBtatis ; minlstrl enim
Dei in hoc Ipsum perse-
ver antes.

VERSIONS

27

A second revision was attempted by Alcuin (735-
804), and a third by Sixtus V (1590). The modern
authorised Vulgate is the Clementine (1592), which
is substantially Jerome's version. The Old Latin
version of the i!^ew Testament was translated directly
from the original Greek. The Vulgate was only a re-
vision of the Old Latin. But the Old Latin was made
long before any of our existing G-reek manuscripts, Value of the
and takes us back almost to within a generation of the vei-s\on!'^
time at which the Xew Testament books were com-
posed. The Old Latin Version is therefore one of the
most interesting and valuable evidences which we pos-
sess for the condition of the New Testament text in
the earliest times.*

Jerome

sed semetipsum exin-
anivit, formam servi ac-
cipiens, in similitudinem
hominum factus et habitu
inventus ut homo.

Jerome

Juvenes similiter bor-
tare, ut sobrii sint. In
omnibus te ipsum prsebe
exemplum bonorum ope-
rura, in doctrina, in in-
tegritate, in gravitate, in
sermone sano et irrepre-
hensibili, ut is qui ex
adverse est vereatur, ni-
hil habens malum dicere
de nobis.

Philippians 2 : 7

Tertullian

exhausit semet ip-
sum accepta effigie servi
et in similitudine ho-
minis et figura inven-
tus ut homo.

Titus 2 : 6-8

Lucifer of Cagliari
Juvenes similiter hor-
tare, ut sobrii sint in
omnibus, (note diflference
of punctuation,) per om-
nia te ipsum formam
prcebena bonorum ope-
rum in doctrina (punc-
tuation), in integritate,
in gravitate, in sermone
sanujn, irreprehensihi-
lem, ut adversarius re-
vereatur nihil habens
quid dicere malum de
nobis.

NOVATIAN

semet ipsum exinani-
vit formam servi accipi-
ens, in similitudine ho-
minum factus et habitu
inventus ut homo.

Ambbobiasteb

Juniores similiter
hortare, continentes essfi
per omnia, temei ipsum
prcebens exemplum bon-
orum operum in doc-
trina, in integritate, in
gravitate, verbum sa-
num, irreprekensibile,
ut is qui e diverse est
revereatur nihil habens
dicere de nobis dignum
reprehensio7ie.

1 On Latin Vei-sions, see : H. Ronsch, Das N. T. TertullianSy
etc., Leipzig, 1871. Id. Itala und Vulgata, 2 Ausg., Marburg,
1875. Wordsworth and White, Novnm Testamentum Latine,
Oxford, 1887. Wordsworth, White, and Sanday, OM Latin
Biblical Texts, Oxford, 1888. F. C. Burkitt, The Old Latin and

28

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

2. Syriac Versions. — The gospel was first preached
in the East. The nearness of Syria to Judaea, and
the early growth of the church at Antioch and Damas-
cus, must have produced an early demand for a ren-
dering into the Syriac tongue. Of extant versions
there are five: Peshitto, Curetonian, Philoxenian and
Harclean, Jerusalem or Palestinian, and the Lewis
Palimpsest.

The Peshitto is the great standard version of the
Syriac church, made not later than the third century.
It is known to us in 177 manuscripts, most of which
are in the British Museum. Two of these are of the
fifth century; at least a dozen more not later than the
sixth century. The Peshitto does not contain those
books of the New Testament which were the last to
be generally accepted, as 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude,
and the Apocalypse.

About the beginning of the present century Gries-
bach and Hug asserted that the Peshitto was not the
original Syriac, but a revision of an earlier version.
In 1842 eighty leaves of a copy of the Gospels in
Syriac were discovered in the Syrian Convent of St.
Mary in the Nitrian Desert. These contained a dif-
ferent text from those of any manuscripts previously
known. They were edited by Dr. Cureton of the
British Museum, who maintained that they exhibited
the very words of the Lord's discourses in the lan-
guage in which they were originally spoken. The
manuscript is of the fifth century, practically con-
temporary with the earliest existing manuscripts of

the Itala, Cambridge Texts and Studies, IV, 3, Cambridge, 1896.
S. Berger, Hlstoire de la Vulgate pendant les premiers siecles
du Moyen Age, Paris, 1893. D, F. Fritzsche, article " Latein-
ische Bibelubersetzungen," in Herzog's lieal-Encyklopddie. On
the Vetus Latina of PauPs Epistles : Ziegler, Die Lateinischen
Bibelubersetzungen vor Hieronymus, Munchen, 1879.

VERSIONS

29

Various
opinions as
to the Cure-

the Peshitto. Cureton, however, argued that the
character of the translation showed that its original
must have been earlier than the original of the Pesh-
itto, and that the Peshitto was the revision of the Old
Syriac.^

Cureton's view has been hotly contested. The ques-
tion is, whether the Curetonian, which is less accurate,
scholarly, and smooth than the Peshitto, is a corrup- tonian.
tion of the latter, or whether, as Cureton maintained,
the Peshitto is a revision of the Curetonian. It may
be said that it is unlikely that an accurate version like
the Peshitto should have been deliberately altered for
the worse, and that a less accurate, independent ver-
sion should have passed into circulation. The affini-
ties.of the Curetonian version are with the older forms
of the Greek text, while those of the Peshitto are with
its later forms. Tischendorf assigns the Curetonian
to the middle, the Peshitto to the end, of the second
century. Others assign the Peshitto to the end of the
third or beginning of the fourth. Dr. Hort says that
the Curetonian text is not only itself a valuable au-
thority, but renders the comparatively late and revised
character of the Peshitto a matter of certainty.

The question was reopened by the discovery, in
1892, by Mrs. Agnes Lewis, in the Convent of St.
Catherine on Mt. Sinai, of a Syriac palimpsest of the
four Gospels. The following is Mrs. Lewis's own ac-
count of her discovery: ^ —

^'In the Convent of St. Catherine, on Mt. Sinai, a
chest containing ancient Syriac manuscripts has lain

The Lewis
palimpsest.

1 The manuscript of the Curetonian Syriac Gospels contains
Matt. 1-8 : 22 ; 10 : 31-23 : 25. Of Mark, 16 : 17-20. Of John,

1 : 1-42 ; 3 : 6-7 : 37, and fragments of 14 : 11-29. Of Luke,

2 : 48-3 : 16 ; 7 : 33-15 : 21 ; 17 : 24-24 : 44.

2 The Four Gospels translated from the Sinaitic Palimpsest^
London, 1894.

30 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

undisturbed for centuries. Professor Palmer saw its
contents in 1868, and thus refers to them : ' Among a
pile of patristic and other works of no great age or
interest are some curious old Syriac books, and one or
two palimpsests. My hurried visit prevented me from
examining these with any great care ; but they would
no doubt well repay investigation.'

" The first real examination of these books was re-
served for Mr. Rendel Harris, who, in 1889, after a
stay of fifteen days at the Convent, contrived to dis-
arm all prejudices, and to obtain access to these hid-
den treasures. . . .

"Amongst the ancient volumes which were produced
for our inspection by the late Hegoumenos and Libra-
rian, Father Galakteon, was a thick volume, whose
leaves had evidently been unturned for centuries, as
they could be separated only by manipulation with
the fingers, and in some cases only by the steam of a
kettle. A single glance told me that the book was a
palimpsest, and I soon ascertained that the upper
writing was a very entertaining account of the lives
of women saints, and that its date was, as I then read
it, a thousand and nine years after Alexander, that is,
A.D. 697. After the word 'nine' there is a small hole
in the vellum, which, as Mr. Rendel Harris believes,
occupies the place of the syllable corresponding to
the 'ty' of 'ninety,' and the date is thus probably
A.D. 778.

" I then examined the more ancient writing which
lay beneath this. It is in two columns, one of which
is always projected onto the margin, and it is written
in the same character, but in a much smaller hand
than the later writing which covers it. It was also
slightly reddish in colour. As I glanced down the
margin for over 280 pages, every word that I could
decipher was from the Gospels, and so were the lines

VERSIONS 31

which at the top or bottom of several pages were free
of the later writing. And few, indeed, were the pages
which had not a distinct title, such as ' Evangelium,'
' da Mathai,' ' da Marcus,' or ' da Luca.' "

Mrs. Lewis photographed the pages which were The work of
shown to the late Professor Bensley, who was then ^^^' ^®^^^-
engaged on a critical edition of the Curetonian Gos-
pels. He pronounced the text to be of the same type
as the Curetonian.

A second expedition to the Sinaitic convent was
organised, in which Mrs. Lewis was accompanied hj
Professor Bensley, J. Kendel Harris, and F. C. Burkitt.
In forty days the text of the Gospels was transcribed
directly from the manuscript, and Mrs. Lewis suc-
ceeded in restoring much of the faded writing by
means of a chemical agent.

The manuscript is written on strong vellum. The Appearance
text of the Gospels underlies about 284 pages on 142 fj^^^''''^'^^'
leaves of the Martyrology. In addition to these leaves
the scribe made use of four leaves from a fourth-cen-
tury manuscript of the Gospels, many leaves from a
volume of Syriac apocrypha, containing the Acts of
Thomas and the Kepose of Mary, and other leaves
from a Greek manuscript, not identified.

The text presents a number of variations from the Variations
standard Greek text, but most of them are curious and ^l^^l °^^^^-
interesting rather than important. There are some
transpositions, as in John 18, where the questioning
by the High Priest follows immediately upon Christ's
being led to him, and Peter's three denials are grouped
in a consecutive narrative in the succeeding verses. In
Luke 22 there is a fresh arrangement of the narra-
tive from ver. 17 to ver. 21, by which it is made more
compact and orderly. The interpolation at Luke 23 :
48, which occurs only in Codex Bezae, appears here:
" Woe unto us, what hath befallen us ? Woe unto us

32 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

for our sins." Matt. 1 : 16 reads, " Joseph begat Jesus
who is called Christ," and in ver. 25 the words " and
knew her not until " are omitted. Yet Matt. 1 : 18
is retained, "When they had not come near to one
another, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost."
The last twelve verses of Mark are omitted.

The question of the relation of this Codex to other
V^/^ous"'^^ Syriac Versions is far too technical to be discussed
here. An important point is the relation of the Cure-
tonian Version to the Diatessaron or Gospel Harmony
of Tatian, composed about 160 a.d., and which was
charged with omitting whatever went to show that
Jesus was born of the seed of David according to the
flesh. The whole problem presents the following
factors : (1) An early Syriac Version represented by
the Curetonian, but how early ? (2) The Peshitto. Is
it a revision of an earlier version, and if so, is that
version the Curetonian? (3) Tatian's Diatessaron.
Was it originally written in Syriac ? Was it earlier
than the Curetonian ? To quote Mrs. Lewis, " Was the
Diatessaron compiled in the second century from the
version contained in the Curetonian and in the Sinai
Codices, or did that version come into existence only
in the fourth century, when the use of the Diatessaron
was discontinued ? " (4) The Lewis Palimpsest. It is
no doubt earlier than the Peshitto. Is it earlier than
the Curetonian ? It does not perfectly coincide with
the Curetonian. Eb. Nestle and J. Eendel Harris
both hold that it represents the very first attempt to
render the Gospel into Syriac, and thus both the Dia-
tessaron and the Curetonian are revisions of it.^

1 See G. Salmon, Some Criticism of the Text of the New
Testament^ 75.

On Syriac Versions, see : Th. Zalin, Geschichte der neutesta-
mentlichen Kanons, Leipzig, 1888, 1801. Eb. Nostle, article
"Syrische Bibeliibersetzungen," in Herzog's Beal-Encyklopddie ;

VEBSIONS 33

The Philoxenian Version was made by Philoxenus, Philoxenian
Bishop of Mabug (Hierapolis) in Eastern Syria, in 508 ; cleaifsyriac.
probably with a view to provide a more literal version
than the Peshitto. Few traces of it, in its original
form, remain.^

Improperly confounded with the Philoxenian is a
version made at Alexandria, in 616, by Thomas of
Harkel, also Bishop of Mabug. It was formerly re-
garded as a revision of the Philoxenian; but the
opinion has gained ground that it was substantially
a new version. It is known as the Harclean Syriac,
and is characterised by slavish adherence to the Greek,
even to the destruction of the Syriac idiom.

The Jerusalem Syriac exists only in fragments, and Jerusalem
differs in dialect from all the other versions. It is
believed to have been made in the fifth or sixth century,
and to have been used exclusively in Palestine. It
was discovered at the end of the last century in the
Vatican Library, and was edited in 1861-64. Since

full catalogue of literature. Baethgen, Evangelienfragmente.
Der griechische Text des Curetonschen Syrers wiederhergestellt,
Leipzig, 1885. G. H. Gwilliam, The Material for the Criticism
of the Peshitto New Testament, Studia Bihlica, Oxford, 1891,
III, 47-104. R. L. Bensley, J. Rendel Harris, F. C. Burkitt,
The Four Gospels in Syriac, transcribed from the Sinaitic
Palimpsest, Cambridge, 1894. Agnes Smith Lewis, The Four
Gospels translated from the Syriac of the Sinaitic Palimpsest,
London, 1894. Tischendorf, New Testament, III, 806 ff. ; list
of earlier articles on the Curetonian Syriac. Scrivener, Intro-
duction, etc., II, 6 ff.

On Tatian's Diatessaron, see A. Harnack, Geschichte der
altehristlichen Litteratur, Th. I, S. 485 ff. J. Hamlyn Hill,
The Earliest Life of Christ, being the Diatessaron of Tatian,
Clarks, Edinburgh, 'l894.

1 Unless the manuscript brought to light by Dr. Isaac H,
Hall of New York, in 1876, can be shown, as is claimed, to
be the unrevised Philoxenian. This manuscript is now in
the library of Union Theological Seminary, New York.

D

8^

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

then fragments of the Gospels and Acts have been
found in the British Museum and at St. Petersburg,
and two additional lectionaries and fragments of the
Pauline Epistles in the Bodleian at Oxford and at Mt.
Sinai. Two more lectionaries have been discovered at
Mt. Sinai by Mrs. Lewis.^

What is called the Karkaphensian Syriac is not a
continuous version, but a collection of passages on
which annotations have been made, dealing with ques-
tions of spelling and pronunciation.

3. Egyptian Versions. — The language used by the
natives of Egypt at the time when the Bible was first
translated for their use, is called Coptic. It was allied
to the Demotic or vulgar language, so called to distin-
guish it from the Hieratic or priestly language. The
Demotic writing contained a mixture of alphabetic
signs, each of which represented a single sound, with
other signs representing syllables, and others not pho-
netic but pictorial. With the entrance of Christianity
into Egypt a new and strictly phonetic alphabet was
introduced, the characters being adopted from the
Greek alphabet.

We are acquainted with five Egyptian Versions, of
which only three need be mentioned : the Memphitic
or Bahiric; the Thebaic or Sahidic; the Bashmuric.
The Memphitic was current in Northern Egypt. It
was the most literary dialect of the Egyptian language,
and is the Coptic of to-day, so far as the language still
exists. Only in the Bahiric are complete copies of the
New Testament still extant. All the other Coptic ver-
sions exist only in fragments. The oldest and best
manuscript (Oxford, Gospels) is of the latter part of
the twelfth century. It is a good and careful traus-

1 See J. Rendel Harris, Biblical Fragments from Mt. Sinai.
G. H. Gwilliam, Anecdota Oxoniensia, Semitic Series, I, 6,
1893 ; 9, 1896.

VERSIONS

35

lation. It did not originally inclnde the Apocalypse.
The Thebaic was current in Southern Egypt. It exists
only in fragments, but these are very numerous, espe-
cially at Paris. The fragments, if combined, would
compose a nearly complete New Testament, with con-
siderable portions of the Old Testament. It is prob-
ably later than the Bahiric. The language is less
polished, and the text not so pure. The Bashmuric
was an adaptation of the Thebaic, in the dialect of
herdsmen living in the Nile Delta. Only a few frag-
ments remain, covering about three hundred verses of
the Fourth Gospel, and five verses of the Pauline
Epistles.

For the ^Ethiopic, Armenian, and Gothic Versions,
the reader may consult Tischendorf s New Testament,
III, and Scrivener's "Introduction," etc. A tenth-
century manuscript of the Armenian version is inter-
esting as containing the last twelve verses of Mark's
Gospel, with a heading stating that they are " of the
Elder Aristion." One Aristion is mentioned by Papias
as having been a disciple of the Lord.

If the writer of these verses could be identified with-
out doubt as a disciple of the Lord, the fact would
naturally have an important bearing on the much-
vexed question of the authenticity of the passage.
But such identification is far from positive.^

1 See Eusebius, H. E., Ill, 39.

The Gothic Version of the Gospels may be seen in Bosworth
and Waring's Gothic and Anglo-Saxon Gospels in Parallel Col-
umns. For an interesting treatment of Ulfilas, the author of
the Gothic Version, see T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders,
I, Ft. I, 80 ff.

On Egyptian Versions, see J. B. Lightfoot, in Scrivener's
Introduction, 4th ed. II, 91-144. Tischendorf, Prolegomena,
869 ff.

^thiopic,
Armenian,
and Gothic
Versions.

The Elder
Aristion.

CHAPTER IV

PATRISTIC QUOTATIONS

The third source of textual evidence is furnished by
quotations from the Greek Testament by other writers,
especially the Church Fathers. This class of evidence
is styled " the Evidence of Patristic Quotation." It
has a certain value, but the value is limited or quali-
fied by numerous considerations. While it is probable
that nearly the whole substance of New Testament
teaching could be recovered from the Patristic writ-
ings, the same cannot be said of the text. The text of
many of the Fathers is itself in an imperfect state.
" It is a shame," says Dr. Nestle, " that the most im-
portant Fathers are not yet before us in proper edi-
tions." Dr. Sanday says : " The field of the patristic
writings needs to be thoroughly overhauled. What
makes this the more urgent is that where the text has
not been critically tested, the quotations from the
Bible are the first to suffer. The scribes were con-
stantly in the habit of substituting the text with which
they were themselves familiar for that which they
found before them in the manuscript. So that what
we have very frequently is, not the words of the
Father as they were originally written, but simply the
late Byzantine or Vulgate text current in the Middle
Ages when the manuscript was copied." ^

1 Expositor, 1st Ser. , XI, 171. The Vienna Academy has been
issuing, since 1867, a Corpus Scriptorum Ecdesiasticorum
Latinorum, which already amounts to fifty volumes ; and the

36

PATBISTIC QUOTATIONS 37

The habits of the Fathers in quotation were very Patristic
loose. Having no concordances or indices, or any- quotaU^on.
thing resembling the modern apparatus for facilitating
reference, and often no manuscript, they were fre-
quently compelled to rely upon memory for their cita-
tions. Quoting from memory explains what we so
often find, — combinations of different passages, trans-
positions, and sense-renderings. Though a full sum-
mary of the whole gospel life could be composed from
the quotations of Justin Martyr, his quotations are
careless. He quotes the same passage differently on
different occasions. Although he cites written docu-
ments, he often quotes from memory, and interweaves
words which are given separately by the Synoptists.
He condenses, combines, and transposes the language
of the Lord as recorded in the Gospel records. Take,
for example. Matt. 5 : 22, 39, 40, 41, and Luke 6 : 29.
In Justin, 1 Apol. XVI, we read tw tvtttovtl a-ov rrjv
crcayova Trdpexe kol tyjv oXXyjv, kol tov atpovra crov tov )(LT(ava
rj TO IfidTLOv fJir) K(oAucr>;s. "Os 8c av opyiaOrj ivo)^6<; iariv cis
TO TTvp, iravTL §€ ayyapevovTL ce fxtXiov aKoXovOrjaov. Here
we have several verses massed, apparently from two
Evangelists. Luke is literally followed in the first
nine words. The order of the Gospel is not observed,
and the sense is changed in the words about the coat
and the cloke.

Similarly Matt. 5 : 46 ; comp. Luke 6 : 27. Justin,
1 Apol. XV : €1 dyaTTare rov<s dyaTrwi/Tas v/Aa5, tl Katvbv
TTotetTe ; kol yap ot TTopvoi tovto ttolovo-lv. Here, instead of
" What reward have ye ? " Justin has " What new thing
do ye do ? " For " publicans " he gives " fornicators."

Again, see Clement of Alexandria, Strom. Ill, 4, 36,
where Matt. 5 : 16 is given to. dyaOa. vfidv cpya XafiipdTo),
" Let your good works shine."

Berlin Academy has in process an edition of the Ante-Nicene
Church Teachers.

38

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Apostolic
Fathers not
valuable in
Scripture
quotation.

Inaccurate
citation.

The Apostolic Fathers are of little value for patris-
tic quotation, since they do not so much quote as blend
the language of the New Testament with their own.
Fragments of most of the canonical Epistles are em-
bedded in their writings, and their diction is more or
less coloured by that of the apostolic books,^ and differ-
ent passages are combined.^

It is possible that, in some cases, the writers do not
intend to quote, but merely to use the words loosely
by way of allusion. But often, even when quotation
is intended, the citation is inaccurate. To take a sin-
gle instance, Clement of Kome was familiar with the
Epistle to the Hebrews, and references to it occur fre-
quently in his letter to the Corinthians ; but in his ci-
tation of Heb. 1 : 3, 4, in Ch. 36, for S6$rj<i " glory,"

1 For example, see Ignatius, Magn. X, viripdeade olv ttjv KaKTjp
l^fxrjv TTjv ira.\aio}det(Tav Kal iuo^iffaffav, Kal ixera^dXeffde els v^av
^fiTlv 6i ia-riv'Iria-ovs Xpi(TT6s, " Put away the vile leaven which
hath waxed stale and sour, and betake yourselves to the new
leaven which is Jesus Christ." Compare 1 Cor. 5:7..

Ignatius to Polycarp, I, irdvTCJv dvixov iv dydTry, " Suffer all
in love. ' ' Compare Eph. 4 : 2.

Ignatius to Polycarp, II, (ppdvifxos ylvov ws 6 50ts iv Tra<np Kal
&K4paLos eia-ael ojs i] TrepiaTepd, " Become thou prudent as the ser-
pent in all things, and forever guileless as the dove." Compare
Matt. X. 16.

* Thus Ignatius, Philad. VII, (rb irveO/jLa) oUev ydp irbdev
ipX^Tai Kal TToO inrdyet, Kal to. Kpvirrd iXeyx^h "It (the Spirit)
knoweth whence it cometh and where it goeth, and searcheth
out the hidden things. ' ' Here John 3 : 8 and 1 Cor. 2 : 10 are
blended.

Polycarp to the Philippians, I, ov ijyeipev 6 debs \va-as rds (b8i-
vaj Tov q.8ov els 6v ovk Ibbvres TTicrrei/cre x^P^ dv€K\a\-f)T(fi Kal
Sedo^aa-fihri els rjv iroWol iindvp.o\}<xiv el<re\deZv. Tlie quotation
from Acts 2 : 24 is inexact, " Whom God raised up, having
loosed the pains of Hades." With this are combined a loose
quotation from 1 Pet. 1:8, "In whom, not having seen, ye be-
lieve with joy unspeakable and full of glory " ; also an adapta-
tion of 1 Pet. 1 : 12, " into which many desire to enter."

PATRISTIC QUOTATIONS 89

we have ixeyaXwa-vvrj^ " majesty " ; for Kpurrtav " better,"
IM€L^(x)v " greater " ; and Trap' avrovs " than they " is
omitted.

Renderings where the sense is given without strict
regard to the text are found frequently in Irenseus,
who is usually careful in quotation. He changes the
syntax, or uses different words intended as equivalents,
as evxa.pL(TT7](r€v for evXoyrjcrev in Luke 2 : 28 ; olkoXovOcl fxoi
for tp^€.TaL OTviaoi [xov, in Luke 1-4 : 27 ; ir^wXav-qixivov for
dTToAcoAos in Luke 15 : 4. Similarly Origen, Cont. Cels.
8 : 43, gives the equivalent of Eph. 2 : 12 without
exact quotation, TQv<i ^eVovs toji/ BLadrjKCjv rov Ocov Kol
aXXoTpiov^ TU)v evayyeXcoyv.

It is quite j)ossible that a Father may have shaped Influence of
a passage to fit his view of a disputed point. Hence, b?as!^*^^°
passages which bear upon great doctrinal controversies
must be examined to see whether they exhibit traces
of intentional alteration in the interest of doctrinal
bias. On the whole, there is little of this. The worst
that can be charged, in the great majority of cases, is
a tendency, where two readings exist, to prefer the one
which makes for the writer's view. Some other cases
may be set down to ignorance of the principles of
textual criticism. Thus Tertullian castigates Marcion
for substituting 8ta/xept(7/xov "division" for fxdxaipav
" a sword," in Luke 12 : 51. " Marcion," he says,
"must needs alter, as if a sword could do anything
but divide." But Marcion was right, and Tertullian,
quoting from memory, had in mind the parallel pas-
sage in Matt. 10 : 34.^

Again, Tertullian stigmatises the Valentinians as
adulterators for reading, in John 1 : 13, 61 iyewrjOrjaav,
"which were born." The correct reading, he main-
tains, is OS iyevvrjOrj, " who was born," and the refer-

1 Tert. Adv. Marc. IV, 2.

40

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Evidence
of patristic
quotation to
be cautious-
ly used.

ence is to Christ. But the reading of the Valentinians
was correct, and Tertullian's reading was absurd, as
the context shows.

Similarly, Ambrose charged the Arians with erasing
from the text of John 3 : 6, the words, " because the
Spirit is God and is born of God," in order to support
their denial of the deity of the Holy Ghost. But
Ambrose did not know that these words were a gloss
which had been incorporated into the western text,
and that therefore the Arians were right in omit-
ting it.

Patristic quotations have a real value in enabling
us to fix, at least approximately, the dates at which
certain readings are found. Between a.d. 170 and
250 we have a number of voluminous writers ; and in
the extant remains of Origen alone the greater part of
the New Testament is quoted. On the other hand, the
dates of the earliest manuscripts and of some of the
versions cannot be fixed with absolute certainty, and
the dates of the texts which they contain are still
more uncertain. Yet it is to be remembered that, in
case of a disagreement between patristic evidence and
manuscript authority, the early date of a Father is no
guarantee for the value of his evidence, because, con-
temporary with the earliest Fathers, we have a large
amount of textual corruption.

It is therefore evident that the testimony of the
Fathers to the New Testament text is to be received
with great caution, and not without the support of the
oldest manuscripts and the versions. Wliere these
agree with patristic testimony, the conclusion is as
nearly decisive as it is possible to reach. A striking
instance of such agreement appears in the case of the
reading in Matt. 19 : 17 : tl fxe epwras -n-epl Tov dyaOov ;
" Why dost thou ask me about the good ? " as against
Tl fi€ Xcycis dya66v ', " Why callcst thou me good ? "

PATRISTIC QUOTATIONS 41

" The critic must be sure (1) that he has the true text Specific
of his author before him ; (2) what passage it is that ^^^^^^o^^.
the author is quoting (and this is a point about which
it is very possible to make mistakes) ; (3) that the
quotation is deliberately taken from a manuscript and
not made freely from memory and intended rather as
an allusion than a quotation; and (4) what precise
reading it was that the manuscript presented. In
order to be clear on these points, every single instance
of supposed quotation has to be weighed carefully
with its context, and only the sifted results of a most
extended study can be admitted into the critical ap-
paratus." ^

The most important sources of this kind of evidence
are the writings of Justin Martyr, Tatian, Irenseus,
Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Origen, Tertul-
lian, Cyprian, Eusebius, and Jerome.^

1 Sanday, Expositor, 1st Ser., XI, 170.

2 On Patristic quotations, see G. N. Bonwetsch and H. Ache-
lis. Die christliche griechische Schriftsteller vor Eusebius, Kir-
cheyivdter- Commission cler Berliner Academie, Bd. I, Leipzig,
1897. J. W. Burgon, The Revision Revised, London, 1883.
LI. J. M. Bebb, Evidence of the Early Versions and Patristic
Quotations on the Text of the Books of the New Testament,
Studia Biblica, IT, Oxford. Lists of ancient writers in Tischen-
dorf, Prolegomena ; Scrivener's Introduction ; andE. C. Mitchell,
Critical Handbook of the Greek New Testament, New York,
1896.

PART n

HISTOEY or THE TEXTUAL OKITIOISM OP THE
NEW TESTAMENT

CHAPTEE V

TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE EARLY CHURCH

Textual Criticism of the New Testament is a
modern science, although attention was very early
directed to the condition of the New Testament text.
Early Corruptions of the text appeared at a very early

appearance date. Reuss says, "It may be asserted with toler-
corruptions. able certainty that the farther back we go in the his-
tory of the text the more arbitrarily it was treated."
Differences between New Testament manuscripts
appeared within a century of the time of its com-
position, and additions and alterations introduced by
heretical teachers were early a cause of complaint.
Tischendorf says, " I have no doubt that in the very
earliest ages after our Holy Scriptures were written,
and before the authority of the church protected
them, wilful alterations, and especially additions,
were made in them." Scrivener says that the worst
corruptions to which the New Testament has ever
been subjected, originated within a hundred years
after it was composed, and Hort agrees with him.
Unlike the text of the Koran, which was officially
fixed from the first and regarded as sacred, — for a
century and a half at least, the greatest freedom

42

EABLT CHURCH 43

was exercised in the treatment of the New Testament
writings. These writings were not originally regarded
as Holy Scripture. Copies of the writings of the
Apostles were made for the use of individual com-
munities, and with no thought of placing them on the
same level with the Old Testament. Accordingly,
there would be little effort at x^^mctilious accuracy,
and little scruple in making alterations.

Variants meet us as soon as quotations from the
apostolic writings occur at all in later authors, and
that both in catholic and heretical writers. Heretics Work of
felt the necessity of seeking for their peculiar doC; corrupting
trines a support which should secure for them a place the text,
within the church with whose tradition they were, at
many points, in conflict. Thus they were driven to
interpret the apostolic writings in harmony with their
own systems.

Accordingly, we find, in the earlier Apologists,
allusions to wilful corruptions and misinterpretations.
Thus, Irenaeus (Adv. Hser. Ill, 12) declares that " the
others (besides Marcion), though they acknowledge
the Scriptures, pervert their interpretation." Ter
tullian (De Praesc. H^r. XXXVIII) says that Mar-
cion and Valentinus change the sense by their
exposition. "Marcion," he continues, "has used a
sword, not a pen; while Valentinus has both added
and taken away." Marcion mutilated the Gospel of
Luke in the interest of his antijudaistic views,
although it should be said that some of his varia-
tions were doubtless taken from manuscripts in circu-
lation in his time. Both Tertullian and Epiphanius
go through his work in detail, indicating the mutilar
tion point by point. ^

1 See J. W. Burgon, The Revision Revised, 34, 35. Tertullian,
Adv. Marc. IV, V. Epiphanius, Hcer. XLII. Examples of
Gnostic interpretations are given by Irenaeus (Adv. Hcer. I, et

44

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Origen's
textual com-
ments.

Manuscripts
not care-
fully pre-
pared.

Reputed
revision by
Hesychius
and Lucian.

Such perversions called forth attempts at textual
criticism. Origen (Comm. on Matthew) remarks on
the diversity of copies arising either from the negli-
gence of scribes or the presumption of correctors. He
frequently discusses various readings, and comments
upon the comparative value of manuscripts and the
weight of numerical testimony. He seldom attempts
to decide on the right reading, being rather inclined to
accept all conflicting readings as contributing to edi-
fication. His value is in reproducing the character-
istic readings which he found. There is no sufficient
evidence of a general revision of the text by him, as
maintained by Hug.

Again, minute care was not exercised in the prepa-
ration of manuscripts. In some cases they appear to
have issued from a kind of factory, where the work
of transcribing was carried on on a large scale. Por-
tions of the same manuscript seem to have been
copied from different exemplars and by different
hands, and it does not appear to have been thought
necessary to compare the two exemplars, or to har-
monise the disagreements. Moreover, changes of
reading were introduced by individual bishops, who
had the sole authority over the public reading of
Scripture, and these changes, unless very violent,
would soon become as familiar as the old readings,
and would pass into the versions.^

According to Jerome,^ Hesychius, an Egyptian
bishop, and Lucian, a presbyter and martyr of Anti-
och, undertook a revision of the New Testament text
toward the close of the third century. Our informa-

passim) and by Origen in his commentary on the Fourth
Gospel.

1 See G. Salmon, Some Criticism of the Text of the New
Testament, 61, 78.

a Adv. Bujinum, II, 26 ; De Vir. III. 77 ; Ad Damasum.

EABLT CHURCH 45

tion on this work, however, is very meagre. Jerome
speaks of it slightingly, and the Decretum of Pope
Gelasius I, " De libris recipiendis et non recipiendis "
(496 A.D.), the genuineness of which, however, is dis-
puted, refers to Hesychius and Lucian as having falsi-
fied the Gospels into Apocrypha.^

Harmonies of the Gospels, by which are meant con-
structions of a single continuous narrative out of the
four, like that of Tatian, had a tendency to foster
alterations made in order to bring the Gospels into
harmony of expression as well as of substance.^

Of this Jerome complains (Ad Damas.), as also of Jerome com-
the transference of marginal glosses to the text. He aUerat^ons
comments on the number of recensions, which he de- ^^ ^^^ t®^-
Clares are well-nigh as numerous as the codices, and
urges a return to the Greek original, and a correction
of those things which have been falsely rendered by
vicious interpreters, or perversely emended by pre-
sumptuous ignoramuses. In his own revision of the
New Testament, begun about 382, Jerome displayed
great timidity, and chose codices which did not differ
widely from the readings of the Latin.

We repeat, however, that textual criticism is a
modern science, and cannot be said to have really ex-
isted before the application of printing to the New
Testament text. In our discussion of its history it
will therefore be more convenient as well as more
interesting to combine the history of criticism with
that of the printed text.

^ See B.F.Westcott, History of the New Testament Canon,
6th ed., 393, note. 0. von Gebhardt, article "Bible Text," in
Schaff-Herzog Encyclopcedia, I, 270. F. J. A. Hort, Westcott
and Hort's Greek Testament, Introduction, 181. E. Reuss,
Geschichte der heiligen Schriften des Neuen Testaments, 6th ed.,
trans, by Houghton, §§ 367, 368.

2 See J. Hamlyn Hill, The Earliest Life of Christ, etc., 31, 32.

46

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Printing was applied to the Old Testament much
earlier than to the New. The Jews, by means of their
numbers and wealth, were able to command both the
skill and the money necessary for the multiplication
of the Old Testament in Hebrew, and there was a
demand among them for Hebrew books. While no
printed edition of the New Testament was made before
1514, the Hebrew Psalter was issued in 1477, and the
entire Old Testament in Hebrew in 1488. Portions
of the Greek Testament, however, were printed as
early as 1486 — the Hymns of Mary and Zacharias —
as an appendix to a G-reek Psalter, and the first six
chapters of the Fourth Gospel appeared in 1504, edited
by Aldus Manutius of Venice.

The reason for this delay was that the capture of
Constantinople by the Turks (1453), and the conse-
quent bondage or exile of the Greek population, were
nearly contemporaneous with the invention of printing,
thus hindering the efforts of the Greeks to multiply
copies of their scriptures. Many of the exiled Greeks
earned their living by copying Greek books, and thus
had a positive interest in not using the art of printing ;
and the early attempts at printing Greek were clumsy,
so that manuscript was preferred for reading. " So
habituated were Greek, scholars in that day to read
Greek abounding with contractions, many of which
were deemed by copyists to be feats of calligraphy,
that the endeavours to print Greek with separate types
were despised and undervalued " (Tregelles).

The Latin Vulgate reigned supreme and unchallenged
in Western Europe, as the only form in which Scripture
was known and received. Even theologians had no
desire for the original text. The Old Testament in
Hebrew was regarded as a book for Jews only. Latin
was held to be the only proper medium for the in-
struction of Christians, and all departures from

EARLY CHURCH

47

criticism.

Jerome's Version were suspected as dangerous inno-
vations.^

The history of the printed text of the New Testa- Periods of
ment and of the accompanying development of textual ment oY ^^
criticism falls into three periods : (1) The period of textual
the reign of the Textus Receptus, 1516-1770; (2) The
transition period from the Textus Eeceptus to the
older uncial text, 1770-1830; (3) The period of the
dethronement of the Textus Receptus, and the effort
to restore the oldest and purest text by the application
of the genealogical method, 1830 to the present time.

1 The Latin Vulgate was first published at Mayence in 1455,
in two volumes, known as the Mazarin Bible. The German
Bible was also printed before the Greek and Hebrew original.
At least fourteen editions of the High German Bible were printed
before 1518, and four of the Low German from 1480 to 1522.
See Fritzsche, article "Deutsche Bibelubersetzungeu," in Her-
zog's Real-Encyklopadie.

CHAPTER VI

FIRST PERIOD (1516-1770). THE COMPLUTENSIAN
POLYGLOT AND ERASMUS'S GREEK TESTAMENT

Ximenes
and the
Compluten-
sian.

First

printed but
not first
published.

Aldus Manutius, the Venetian publisher, an accom-
plished scholar, had conceived the plan of a Polyglot
of three languages, probably as early as 1497 ; and in
1501 he submitted a proof-sheet to Conrad Celtes, a
German scholar.^

It is, however, to the Spanish cardinal, Ximenes de
Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo, that the honour belongs
of preparing the first printed edition of the Greek New-
Testament.^

It was intended to celebrate the birth of the heir
to the throne of Castile, afterward Charles V. The
cardinal employed for the work the best scholars he
could secure, among whom were three converted Jews.
The most eminent was James Lopez de Stunica, after-
ward known for his controversy Avith Erasmus. The
fifth volume of the work, containing the New Testa-
ment, was the first completed, in 1514. The printing
of the entire work was completed on the 10th of July,
1517. But though the first printed, this was not the
first published edition of the Greek Testament. Pope
Leo X withheld his approval until 1520, and the work
was not issued until 1522, three years after the car-
dinal's death, and six years after the publication of

1 The Greek Psalter, in the preface to which the plan is an-
nounced, is undated.

* For some personal notices of Ximenes, see Scrivener's Intro-
duction, II, 176.

48

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THE COMPLUTENSIAN POLYGLOT 49

Erasmus's Testament. The entire cost was about
$115,000, and only six hundred copies were printed.

This work is known as the Complutensian Polyglot,
from Complutum, the Latin name of the town of Alcala
de Henares, the seat of a university, in the district of
Guadalajara, a few miles to the northeast of Madrid,
where the printing was done. There are six volumes,
containing the Old Testament with the Apocrypha, and
the New Testament, together with indices, lexica, and
other matter. The canonical books of the Old Testa-
ment are given in three languages, the Latin Vulgate
occupying the place between the Septuagint and the
Hebrew. As announced in the Prolegomena, this
arrangement signified that Christ (the Roman or Latin
Church) was crucified between two robbers (the Jew-
ish Synagogue and the schismatical Greek Church).
The New Testament is given in the Greek and in
the Latin Vulgate. Its title is: NOVUM TESTA-
MENTUM GR.^CE ET LATINE IN ACADEMIA
COMPLUTENSI NOUITER IMPRESSUM. Par-
allel passages and quotations are placed in the Latin
margin. The chapters are marked, but not the verses.

The text of the Complutensian was reprinted in sev- Reprints of
eral successive editions at Antwerp and Geneva, and ^^^ Complu-
also in the Antwerp Polyglot, edited by Spaniards
(1571-72), in the great Paris Polyglot (1630-33), and at
Mayence in 1753. It was reedited by Professor P. A.
Gratz of Tubingen, along with the Clementine Vulgate,
and by Leander Van Ess, with the text of Erasmus in-
corporated (1827). In Stephen's third edition (see be-
low) it is partially connected with the Textus Receptus.

The important question — What manuscripts were whatmanu-
used in the preparation of the New Testament text ? — ^^^^^ were
cannot be answered. The editors name but one manu-
script (Codex Rhodiensis, Acts), and this has disap-
peared. They describe their manuscripts generally as

50 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

" antiquissima et emendatissima," and state that they
were furnished by Pope Leo X from the Apostolic
Library at Rome. But Leo could have sent no New
Testament manuscripts, since he was elected less than
a year before the New Testament was printed. The
library records show that only two manuscripts were
sent to Ximenes from the Vatican in Leo's first year,
neither of which contained any part of the New Tes-
tament.^ The catalogue of Biblical manuscripts in the
library at Alcala consists exclusively of Hebrew and
Latin books, except two containing portions of the
LXX. The story that all the New Testament manu-
scripts at Alcala were sold as useless parchments to a
rocket-maker, in 1749, is without foundation ; since all
the manuscripts formerly belonging to Ximenes and
preserved at Alcala were transferred to Madrid.

It need not be doubted that the Complutensian edi-
tors regarded their manuscripts as ancient and valu-
able, and intended to use them fairly. The charge of
Wetstein and Semler, that they corrupted the text by
conforming it to the Latin, is not sustained, which is
the more remarkable, in view of the almost idolatrous
reverence for the Vulgate indicated in their preface.
A few passages, notably 1 John 5 : 7, 8, afford ground
for suspicion, but a careful comparison shows that,
in the main, they followed their Greek manuscripts.
They were unskilled in criticism, ignorant of the value
of manuscripts, and editing the New Testament was a
quite new work. There is no evidence that they used
B, or any manuscript much resembling it in character,
or any other ancient or notably important document.
Their text exhibits affinities with certain cursives of

1 Tregelles (Printed Text, etc. , 7) maintains that the statement
of the editors is truthful, and that both Old and New Testament
manuscripts were furnished from the Vatican. He makes out a
very feeble case.

THE COMPLUTENSIAN POLYGLOT 51

the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries; and. Character of
almost invariably, wherever manuscripts of the thir- tensian™ext'
teenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries differ from
the most ancient Greek codices and from the quota-
tions of early Greek Fathers, the Complutensian agrees
with the modern as against the ancient. The text does
not differ widely from that of most codices written
from the tenth century downward.^

The first published edition of the Greek New Testa- First pub-
ment was due to the enterprise of a publisher, Froben, J^.^^^^ ^^^^
the printer of Basle, who, having heard that the Span-
ish Polyglot was in preparation, resolved to forestall
it. Accordingly he secured, in 1515, the services of
Desiderius Erasmus, who executed the task of prepar- Erasmus,
ing an edition of the Greek Testament with such de-
spatch that the work appeared March 1, 1516, less than
six months from the commencement of the printing.
(Ecolampadius assisted in the correction of the proofs.
It was, of course, full of errors, although described in
the preface as " diligenter recognitum et emendatum " ;
and the address to Pope Leo X assured the Pontiff that
" non temere neque levi opera, sed adhibitis in consil-
ium compluribus utriusque linguae codicibus — vetus-
tissimis simul et emendatissimis." Erasmus himself
declared, later, that it was '•' precipitated rather than
edited." Dr. Scrivener says, "Erasmus's first edition,
in respect of typographical errors, is the most faulty
book I know." In order to save time, he even used
his manuscripts as printers' " copy."

1 On the Complutensian Polyglot see Tischendorf, Prolego-
mena, 205 ff. Scrivener, Introduction, II, 176 ff. Tregelles,
Printed Text of the Greek Testament. I. M. Goeze, Vertheidi-
gung der Comphitens. Bibel, Hamburg, 1765-69. F. Delitzsch,
Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Polyglottenhihel des
Cardinal Ximenes, Leipzig, 1871. C. I. Hefele, Der Cardinal
Ximenes, 2d ed., Tubingen, 1851.

52

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Manuscripts
employed by
Erasmus.

Erasmus's
own Greek
in the
Apocalypse.

It formed a large folio of 1027 pages, and contained,
along with the Greek text, an elegant Latin version,
differing in many respects from the Vulgate. For this
version Erasmus had made notes several years before.

Erasmus's first edition was based on a very few
manuscripts. Only one of these had any special value
(Codex 1, Evang. Act. 1, P. 1, tenth century), and this
he almost entirely neglected, indeed, professed to hold
it in slight esteem. The basis of his text in the Gospels
was an inferior Basle manuscript of the fifteenth cen-
tury, and in the Acts and Epistles one of the thirteenth
or fourteenth century. With these he collated, more
or less carefully, one other manuscript of the Gospels,
two in the Acts and Catholic Epistles, and three in the
Pauline Epistles. None of these was earlier than the
tenth century. Of the Apocalypse he had but a single
manuscript of the twelfth century, of which Dr. Hort
says that with many individualisms and scantily at-
tested readings, it has a large and good ancient ele-
ment and ought to stand very high among secondary
documents (Greek Testament, Introduction, 263). Of
this manuscript the last six verses were lacking. These
Erasmus, who was a better Latinist than Grecian,
turned from the Latin into his own Greek. Some por-
tions of this version, which are to be found in no
Greek manuscript, still appear in the Textus Receptus.^

1 Such are dKaddprrjTOi for tA dKddapra ttjs, XVII, 4. The
Greek language has no such word as dKadapr-qs. Kaiwep iariv for
Kal Trap^o-Toi, XVII, 8. Compare Authorized Version, " and yet
is." As late as 1883 the first impression of the Revision of
Luther's Bible by the German Evangelical Church Conference
left this standing ; and it was not removed until the last Revision
in 1892. 'OpdpLv6s for vpwLvds, XXII, 16. 'EX^^ for epxov, twice,
and Xafx^aviru) for Xa/3^Tw, XXII, 17. 'A<paipri for d^A??, and
d<paLp-fi<x€L for d<f>e\et, XXII, 19. Instances of his use of the
Vulgate in order to amend his Greek manuscripts, where he
thought them defective, are found in his notes on Acts 9 : 5,

pr.ATE V

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(Size uf original page, not including margins, '^^ in. x 5^ in.)

THE COMPLUTENSIAN POLYGLOT 53

Erasmus also refers in his notes to other manu-
scripts seen by him in his travels, but the allusions
are indistinct, and some of the readings are not to be
found. That he had heard of B, appears from Sepul-
veda's correspondence with him in 1533. Sepulveda
speaks of a "most ancient Greek exemplar in the
Vatican Library, containing both Testaments, most
carefully and accurately written in uncial characters,
and differing greatly from ordinary copies." ^

While the work was heartily welcomed in some Attacks on
quarters, it was unsparingly condemned in others, festament
Erasmus's revised Latin Version was regarded as a pre-
sumptuous innovation, and many of the theologians of
the day were displeased by the annotations in which
his alterations were justified. He was attacked by
Edward Lee, afterward Archbishop of York, and by
Stunica, the Complutensian editor. They complained
especially of the omission of 1 John 5 : 7. Erasmus
maintained that it was not an omission, but a non-
addition, showing that even some Latin copies did not
contain the verse.

Although the emperor had protected Erasmus's first Reprinted
edition against reprint for four years, it was repro- Jf ^^^.^^
duced by Aldus Manutius, with some variations, but
with the most of the typographical errors, at Venice, in
1518. It was placed at the end of the Graeca Biblia,
the Aldine Septuagint.

Erasmus himself published four other editions.
The second appeared in 1519. He had given much

6 ; 8 : 37. This manuscript of the Apocalypse was borrowed
by Erasmus from Reuchlin, and was retained by Froben, who
afterward disposed of it. It lay concealed in the library of
the family of Ottingen at Mayhingen, until discovered in 1861
by Fr. Delitzsch. See Delitzsch, Handschriftliche Funde, I,
1861-62.

1 See Scrivener's Introduction, 1, 109.

54

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Insertion of
lJohu6:7.

Erasmus's attention in the meantime to examining manuscripts
lions ^^^' ^^^ ^° revising his own Latin Version; and having
besides more leisure, the text of the second edition
contained many corrections, both of misprints and
readings, the latter mainly on the authority of a fresh
codex of the twelfth century. It contains, however,
several pages of errors, some of which affected
Luther's German Version. Erasmus's revision of his
Latin Version called out fresh attacks : for instance, his
substitution of " sermo " for " verbum " in John 1 : 1.^
The third edition, 1522, differed in several places
from the text of the preceding, but was chiefly re-
markable for the insertion of 1 John 5 : 7. The strong
feeling excited by its omission from the two former
editions had led Erasmus to promise that he would
insert it if it could be found in any Greek manuscript.
In the interval between 1519 and 1522 there came to
hand a manuscript of the sixteenth century, described
Codex Mont- by Erasmus as Codex Britannicus, but now identified
as Codex Montfortianus, at present in the library of
Trinity College, Dublin. Its earliest known owner
was Froy or Roy, a Franciscan monk, who is believed
by some to have written the codex and to have intro-
duced the words from the Vulgate. Erasmus inserted
them in the third edition, but, as he wrote in his note,
"ne cui sit ansa calumniandi." He continued to re-
gard the passage as spurious.

The fourth edition, 1527, contained the Greek, the
Vulgate, and Erasmus's Version, in three parallel col-
umns. Since the publication of the third edition the
Complutensian had come into circulation, and Erasmus
availed himself of it to make certain corrections, and

1 Dr. Scrivener justly remarks that a minute collation of all
Erasmus's editions is greatly to be desired. The number of
corrections in the successive editions, as given by Mill, and
repeated on Mill's authority by Tregelles, is not reliable.

fortianus.

edition.

THE COMPLUTENSIAN POLYGLOT 55

especially to revise the imperfect text of the Apoca-
lypse, though he did not correct all the readings which
he had himself manufactured by translating from the
Latin. With this exception the fourth edition differed
little from the third. The same was true of the fifth
edition, published in 1535, which, however, omitted the
Vulgate, and retained Erasmus's own Latin Version.^

Colinaeus. — The edition of Colin^eus (Simon de Colinaeus's
Colines), Paris, 1534, introduced valuable manuscript
readings, but the edition could not be called critical
The examination of manuscripts was not carried
through. The Erasmian readings in the end of the
Apocalypse were retained. The text, generally speak-
ing, was a mixture of the Erasmian and Compluten-
sian. The edition was not reprinted, and appears to
have had no influence on those which succeeded it.'^

1 See Tregelles, Printed Text, 19-29. Scrivener, Introduction^
I, 199 f. ; II, 182-187, 401-407. Tischendorf, Prolegomena,
207-211. Fr. Delitzsch, Handschriftliche Funds, I, Leipzig,
1861. J. A. Froude, Life and Letters of Erasmus. J. Kendel
Harris, TTie Origin of the Leicester Codex of the New Testament,
46-53, London, 1887. 0. T. Dobbin, TJie Codex 3Iontfortiamis,
etc., London, 1854. E. Reuss, Bibliotheca Novi Testamenti
Groaci. H. C. Hoskier, A Full Account and Collation of the
Greek Cursive Codex, Evangelium 604, Appendix B, the vari-
ous readings by the fifth edition of Erasmus ; Appendix F, re-
port of a visit to the public library at Basle, with facsimile of
Erasmus's second manuscript, Evang. 2, London, 1890. E.
Nestle, Einfuhrung in das Griechische Neue Testament, 6-8.
F. J. A. Hort, Greek Testament, Introduction, 103 ff.

2 Both Reuss and Nestle are disposed to estimate Colinaeus's
edition highly. Nestle says that he introduced a series of read-
ings which are generally acknowledged at this day ; and Reuss
gives a list of fifty-two passages in which he stands alone among
early editors. Compare Scrivener, Introduction, II, 188. C. R.
Gregory, in Prolegomena to Tischendorf 's Testament, says, "In
fifty-two places of those examined by Reuss, Colinaeus furnishes
several readings which are to-day approved by many learned

CHAPTER VII

THE FIRST PERIOD (1516-1770). THE TEXTUS
RECEPTUS

Robert Of Robert Stephen (Estienne), printer at Paris and

ediSons'^ protege of Francis I, it has been said that his biblical
work, taken all together, had perhaps more influence
than that of any other single man in the sixteenth
century. ^ His first two editions, 1546, 1549, were in
small 12mo, printed with type cast at the expense of
Erancis, and issued from the Royal press. They are
known as the " 0 mirificam " editions, from the open-
ing words of the preface, "0 mirificam Regis nostri
optimi et praestantissimi Principis liberalitatem." In
1550 appeared the third edition, in folio, also from
the Royal press, inscribed on the title-page, BacnXel
t' ayaO<3 Kparepio t' alxfJt-rjTr}, in honour of Henry II, and
commonly known as the Editio Regia. Soon after
its publication, Stephen, in order to escape from the
hounding of the Sorbonne theologians and the censors
of the press, removed to Geneva, where he issued his
fourth edition, small 12m o, in 1551. The text of the
editions of 1546 and 1549 was a compound of the
Complutensian and Erasmian texts. ^

The third (folio) edition, the text of which was

1 Wordsworth, White, and Sanday, Old Latin Biblical Texts.

2 Scrivener says that his own collation of these two editions
gives 139 divergencies in the text and 27 in punctuation, and
that in the Apocalypse both editions adhere closely to the Eras-
mian text, differing from each other in only 11 places.

56

THE TEXTU8 RECEPTUS 57

mainly that of Erasmuses fourth and fifth editions,
contained marginal readings from the Complutensian,
and from fifteen manuscripts, among which were Codex
Bezae (D), and Codex Parisiensis (Evang. L, eighth
century). The collation, both of the Complutensian
and of the manuscripts, was partial and slovenly.
The text is perpetually at variance with the majority
of authorities. Of the Complutensian readings many
more were omitted than inserted, and the Complu-
tensian text is often cited incorrectly. The adoption
of Erasmus's text causes nearly three hundred depar-
tures from the editions of 1546 and 1549.

This, however, was the first collection of various The first
readings of any extent, and, however defective, was of yarfous^^ ^^
real value to students.^ readings.

The fourth edition, 16mo, contained two Latin Ver-
sions, the Vulgate and that of Erasmus, on either side
of the Greek text. The text was mainly that of the First
third edition. Here the division of the text into oFverse^^^
verses appears for the first time.^ division.

1 The manuscripts collated by Stephen have been identified.
Tlie two uncials, D and L, are both important. L, of the Four
Gospels, is remarkable for its agreement with B, the citations
of Origen, and the margin of the Harclean Syriac. Scrivener
characterises it as "by far the most remarkable document of
its age and class." The cursives are of the tenth, eleventh,
twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. No. 10 (Acts, Catholic Epis-
tles, Paul, and Apocalypse, tenth century) has considerable
value in the Apocalypse. A list of the manuscripts may be
seen in Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 21.3. Stephen's third edi-
tion was republished by Dr. Scrivener, Cambridge, 1859 ; new
edition, 1887, and again, 1887, with the variations of the prin-
cipal editors down to Westcott and Hort and the Revisers.

2 See Scrivener, Introduction, II, 188-192. Tischendorf,
Prolegomena, 212 ff. I. H. Hall, on "Chapters and Verses,"
Schaff-Herzog Encyclopcedia, 1, 433. Also Journal of the Society
of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, 1883, 1891. Ezra Abbot,
"De Versibus," in Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 167-182. H. C.

58

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Geneva
Bible.

Beza. — Theodore de Beze, the friend and successor
of CrJvin in Geneva, and an eminent classical and
biblical scholar, besides his own Latin Version in
1556, issued ten editions of the Greek Testament :
four in folio, 1565, 1582, 1588, and 1598, and six 8vo,
1565, 1567, 1580, 1591, 1604, 1611. He was not dili-
gent in collecting fresh material for the correction of
the text, and he did not make any extensive use of
his own D of the Gospels and Acts, and Dg (Claro-
montanus) of the Pauline Epistles, sixth century. He
was shy of departures from the text of Erasmus and
Stephen. His textual basis was Stephen's fourth
edition, from which, however, he occasionally di-
verged, sometimes in favour of the Complutensian,
and sometimes of Erasmus, and occasionally sub-
stituting new readings. He availed himself of the
Oriental Versions, employing Tremellius's Latin Ver-
sion of the Peshitto, and Franciscus Junius's Latin
Translation of the Arabic Version. However, he did
not make much use of these. All of his editions vary
somewhat from each other, as well as from those of
Stephen, yet there is no material difference between
any of them. The charge of selecting his readings to
suit his theological opinions (Scrivener, II, 193) should
be received with caution.

Beza's Latin Translation and Commentary were
taken as a guide by the editors of the Genevan Bible,
which was originally published in 1560, and with a
further revision of the New Testament in fuller har-
mony with Beza's views, in 1576. The title was,
" The iSTew Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ trans-
lated out of Greek by Theodore Beza." This work,

Hoskier, Account and Collation of Codex 604, etc. ; Appen-
dix B, reprint with corrections of Scrivener's list of differences
between Stephen, 1550, and the Complutensian, etc. Tregelles,
Printed Text, 30 f.

THE TEXTUS RECEPTU8 59

though never formally authorised, exercised the most '
marked influence of all the early translations upon the
Authorised Version of 1611, the chief foundations of
which were the editions of 1588 and 1598. It was the
Bible of the household, the most popular in England
up to the advent of King James's Version. It con-
tinued to be reprinted until after the middle of the
seventeenth century ; many copies were brought to
America by immigrants, and it passed through about
one hundi-ed and sixty editions.^

The merit of arranging the Oriental Versions in a
convenient form for Biblical study belongs to the
Antwerp Polyglot, issued in eight volumes folio, TheAnt-
under the patronage of Philip II, by the publisher, ^^erp Poly-
Christopher Plantin, at Antwerp, 1569-72, and
edited by the Spanish theologian, Benedict Arias
Montanus. The Greek text appears twice : in Vol. V,
with the Vulgate, the Syrian text and its Latin Trans-
lation, and in Vol. VI, with the interlinear version of
Arias. The text is mainly that of the Complutensian,
but agrees in a few places with Stephen, twice with
Erasmus, and once presents a new reading. Thirteen
copies were printed on vellum. The British Museum
has the one prepared for the Duke of Alva.^

We now begin to see attention called to the value Attention
of patristic quotations in determining the text. Lucas patristk;*^
Brugensis, in 1580, prepared annotations on the entire quotations.

1 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 214-216. Scrivener, Intro-
duction^ II, 192 f. J. Eadie, History of the English Bible, II,
XXXII-XXXVII. Reuss, Bihliotheca Novi Testamenti. Arti-
cle "Beza," Schaff-Herzog Encyclopoedia. B. F. Westcott,
Histoj-y of the English Bible, 296, 297.

2 See E. Nestle, Einfuhrung, etc., 10. Tischendorf, Prolego-
mena, 215 f. M. Eooses, Chnstopher Plantin, Imprimeur An-
versois, Antwerp, 1884. Id., Plantin, C. Correspondance, Gand,
1886. Le Degeorge, La Maison Plantin a Anvers, 3d ed. , Paris,
1886.

60 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Bible, from Greek and Latin Codices, and from the
Syriac Version ; and in 1606 edited the four Gospels
with a Commentary from Plantin's Polyglot, and
with little change of the text. Hugo Grotius, Poly-
glotta Londinensia, freely uses patristic testimony.^

On a still larger scale was the Paris Polyglot of
Guy Michel Jay, ten volumes folio. Jean Morin and
Gabriel Sionita, a Maronite, were the principal col-
laborators in preparing the Oriental texts. The two
volumes of the New Testament appeared in 1630 and
1633. To the texts of the Antwerp Polyglot it added
a Syrian Version of the contested books — 2 Peter, 2
and 3 John, Jude, and the Apocalypse — and an Arabic
Version with a Latin rendering. The text was that
of the Antwerp Polyglot, with a very few changes.^

The Elzevirs and the Textus Receptus. — The brothers
Bonaventure and Abraham Elzevir established a press
at Leyden, and issued seven successive editions : 1624,
1633, 1641, 1656, 1662, 1670, 1678. An 8vo edition
was printed by them for Whittaker of London, in 1633,
with notes by Robert Stephen, Scaliger, Casaubon, and
others, and was also issued at Leyden with a new
title-page in 1641. The Elzevirs' four later editions
were printed in Amsterdam. Their Testaments were
very popular because of their small and convenient
size and their neat text. The text of the edition of
1624 was drawn chiefly from Beza's 1565, 1582, 1589,
and 1598, especially the last, besides Erasmus, the
Complutensian and the Vulgate. The second edition
(1633) had the verses broken up into separate sen-
tences, instead of having their numbers indicated in
the margin as in the edition of 1624. This edition is
notable in the history of textual criticism as contain-

1 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 216, 221, 1132.

2 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 220. Nestle, EinfWhrung,

n.

THE TEXTUS RECEPTUS 61

ing the announcement : " Textum ergo habes nunc AB Textus
OMNIBUS RECEPTUM in quo nihil immutatum aut ftS^!'
corruptum damus." This is the origin of the famil- ence.
iar phrase Textus Receptus. To this text an almost
idolatrous reverence has attached nearly down to the
present time. The history of the textual criticism of
the New Testament is, largely, the story of gradual
emancipation from the tyranny of the Textus Re-
ceptus. It has been slavishly followed with slight
diversities in hundreds of editions, and substantially
represented in all the principal Protestant translations
prior to the present century. In some cases attempts
to criticise or amend it have been regarded as akin to
sacrilege. Yet this sacred text is essentially that of
the last edition of Erasmus, framed from a few mod-
ern and inferior manuscripts and the Complutensian
Polyglot, in the very infancy of Biblical criticism.
In more than a score of places it is supported by the
authority of no Greek manuscript whatever. The term
"Textus Receptus" is, in itself, untruthful. It was
put forth simply as a clever advertisement of an enter-
prising publisher. The edition which bore this pre-
tentious announcement varied somewhat from that of
1624 in the correction of some of the worst misprints,
though it retained others equally bad, and added a few
of its own.

The term is differently applied in England and on Different
the Continent : in England to Stephen's text of 1550, o^^JJef j^^^^
and on the Continent to the Elzevir of 1633. The
differences between these two amount, according to
Scrivener, to 287.^

1 The reverence for the Textus Receptus, and its unhappy
effect in retarding the progress of a sound textual criticism,
may be seen in Dean J. W. Burgon's Bemsion Revised, Lon-
don, 1883, in the works of Dr. Scrivener, and in the views of
the Rev. E. Miller, in the Oxford Debate on the Textual Criti-

62

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

The best textual scholarship of the present day re-
pudiates the Textus Receptus as a textual basis. The
latest and best Concordance to the New Testament
(Moulton and Geden, 1897) entirely ignores its read-
ings.^

cism of the New Testament^ London, 1897. The Expositor''s
Greek Testament (I, 1897), edited by W. Kobertson Nicoll, and
professing to give the latest results of critical scholarship, adopts
the Receptus as its textual basis. It has been the policy of the
British and Foreign Bible Society to circulate in Germany only
reprints of the Textus Receptus. As late as 1893-94 that society
printed at Cologne over twelve thousand copies of this text, and
went on to circulate, in Germany and Switzerland, about six-
teen hundred copies per annum. In order to counteract this, the
Wiirttemburgian Bible Society at Stuttgart published last year
a Greek Testament with a critically revised text, based on a col-
lation of the editions of Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, Wey-
mouth, and Bernhard Weiss, adding for the Gospels and Acts a
selection of manuscript readings, chiefly from Codex Bezae. It
is an admirable specimen of typography, and can be purchased
for about twenty-five cents.

1 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 216 ff. Scrivener, Introduc-
tion, II, 193-195. A. Willems, Les Elzevier : Histoire et
Annccles Typngraphiqnes, Bruxelles et Paris, 1880. F. H. A.
Scrivener, The Neio Testament in the Original Greek according
to the Text foUoiced in the Authorised Version, together loith the
Variations adopted in the Bevised Version, Cambridge, 1881.
He gives a list of the passages in which the Authorised Version
departs from the readings of Beza, 1598. H. C. Hoskier, A
Full Account and Collation of the Greek Cursive Codex Evang.
6O4. Appendix C, a full and exact comparison of the Elzevir
editions of 1624 and 1633.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FIRST PERIOD (1516-1770). THE BEGINNINGS
OF A CRITICAL METHOD

We have now reached the point where the prepara- Summary
tion for effective criticism begins. Up to this time the restafs^o
w^ork had been chiefly the collection and registering of 1628.
evidence. Manuscripts were collated, and their vari-
ous readings noted, but no comparison of them was
attempted. In the earlier editions the evidence was
scanty in amount and inferior in quality. The prin-
cipal uncials were either unknown or inaccessible.
Neither D or Do were much used by Beza, who held
closely by the texts of Erasmus and Stephen. The
Oriental Versions had been printed in the Antwerp
Polyglot, but were used by Beza only to a limited ex-
tent and through Latin translations. Lucas Brugen-
sis and Grotius had only broken ground in the matter
of patristic citations. The text of the Vulgate w^as
faulty, and revisions like those of Erasmus and Beza
were suspected and frowned upon by the ecclesiastical
authorities. The body of manuscript evidence amassed
by the Stephens was imperfectly collated in the edi-
tion of 1550. Though the authorities stand in the
margin, the text is perpetually at variance with the
majority of them, and, in 119 places, with all of them.
No fixed principles regulated the occasional applica-
tions of the manuscript readings to the construction of
the text. Neither the true value of various readings

63

64

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

nor the necessity for accuracy in collation was appre-
ciated or understood. With the occasional adoption
of fresh manuscript readings, mostly of a common and
late type, the text remained substantially Erasmian,
with some modifications from the Complutensian, ex-
cept in those editions which had a Complutensian
basis. The crystallisation into a fixed and received
text which followed was due mostly to the beauty of
the Stephen and Elzevir editions, and to the preten-
tious and groundless advertisement of the Leyden
printers. The Textus Keceptus perpetuated some of
the grossest errors of Erasmus.

The impulse to a new development of textual science
was given in England, about the middle of the seven-
teenth century, through the gift, in 1628, of the Alex-
andrian manuscript to Charles I, by Cyril Lucar, the
Patriarch of Constantinople. France contributed a
powerful auxiliary in Richard Simon, whose writings
had a large share in undermining the general acquies-
cence in the Received Text.^

Walton's Polyglot. — In England the way was led
by Brian Walton, afterward Bishop of Chester, with
his London Polyglot, issued in 1657 in six volumes
folio. The fifth volume, containing the New Testa-
ment, gives Stephen's text of 1550, with the readings
of A at the foot. This notation marks the origin of
the practice of designating the uncials by capitals.
The sixth volume is devoted to a critical apparatus
gathered from a number of authorities, including D, Dg,

1 Simon's principal works on the New Testament were : Ilis-
toire Critique du Texte du Nouveau Testament^ Rotterdam,
1689 ; Histoire Critique des Principaux Commentateiirs du
Nouveau Testament . . . avec une Dissertation Critique sur
les Principaux Actes Manuscrits, Rotterdam, 1693. Reuss
says that Simon surpassed all his predecessors and his succes-
sors for a long time after, in point of sound historical learning,
acumen, and comprehensive grasp of the materials.

PLATE VI

t'

X

U4

I

i

< ^

•oo

<<

^:

CO [_4

So
c
<

< >•

ij

rsl

ri

lifii

rtii^

nm

jitl!

a rii

1 . » «

iflH

^a?^

iil}'

. 1'j^

lIlH

1^ J..

<; .1 'H

1 ^1 3

C|s

\ "ZL ^ -S -Q ,n :

:l.'^2

■«■»'

--b II .. =■

i|-S51l

»- ^ i. .. -r ^

ft "= ^-.^<j='-~:^

" mm

Facsimile of Extracts from a PA(iK of Waltox's Poi.yolot, showino the
Versions of Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Chai'tkr I, in Latin, Greek,
Syriac, and Ethiopic, on the same Page
(Size of oii^'inal page, fi-oiu which one-half has been reproduced, l.^/jin. x 0^ in., not including,' margins.)

SIMON AND WALTON 65

and the copies in Stephen's margin. The most of these
authorities had never been used before. Of the manu-
scripts, which include the famous Codex Montfortianus
(see under Erasmus), three are of the fifteenth cen-
tury, one of the fifteenth or sixteenth, three of the
twelfth, and one of the twelfth or thirteenth. Two,
Evang. 59 and Act. 36, are valuable. Walton also gave
the Velesian and Wechelian readings, which were of
no value.^ Besides the Greek text, the Polyglot con-
tained the Latin Vulgate, the Peshitto, Ethiopic and
Arabic Versions, besides a Persian Version of the Gos-
pels, and the later Syriac of the five books not con-
tained in the Peshitto (2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude,
Apocalypse). Each Oriental Version was accompanied
by a collateral Latin translation.- Walton's work thus
consisted in adding to the materials of criticism. The
versions in the fifth volume furnish a valuable store of
material. He is charged, however, with suppressing

1 The Velesian readings were a collection written in vermilion
in the margin of a copy of Stephen's Editio Regia by Faxardo,
Marquis of Velez, a Spaniard, who was said to have taken them
from sixteen manuscripts, eight of which were in the Escorial.
They were afterward shown to have been collected by Velez
from Latin manuscripts.

The Wechelian readings were from the margin of a Bible
printed at Frankfurt, 1597, by the heirs of Andi-ew Wechel.
All of these readings are found in Stephen's margin, or in the
early editions.

2 Walton was a Royalist during the Civil War, and was chap-
lain to Charles I ; but the Polyglot was published under the
patronage of Cromwell, who allowed the paper to be imported
free of duty. After the Restoration, Walton, appointed Bishop
of Chester by Charles, issued a new preface, in which Cromwell
was styled "maximus ille draco." Accordingly there are two
kinds of copies, — the Bepiiblican, with compliments to Crom-
well in the preface, but with no dedication, and the Loyal, dedi-
cated to Charles II. This was the first work published ^^
subscription in England.

66

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

CurcellfEus's
Testament.
Reacts un-
favourably
upon Wal-
ton's Poly-
glot.

a large part of the collations which had been sent to
him.^

Curcellaeus. — One year after the publication of
Walton's Polyglot, appeared the Greek Testament
of Stephen Curcellaeus, or Courcelles, with a learned
introduction, parallel texts, and many various read-
ings, some from two or three fresh manuscripts. He
repeated the Elzevir text of 1633, with a few changes,
enclosing 1 John 5 : 7 in brackets. He did not, how-
ever, give the authorities for his readings, and those
drawn from manuscripts were mingled with conjec-
tures of his own. As these conjectures were mani-.
festly shaped by Socinian views, his Testament tended
to discourage critical study as something aimed at the
integrity and authority of Scripture. Its appearance
so soon after Walton's Polyglot reacted unfavourably
upon the latter, and created alarm at the collection of
readings presented by Walton. The principal merit
of Curcellaeus's Testament consists in his collection of
parallel texts. In his preface he gives an account of
the earlier editions, and asserts that it is not yet time
to judge of readings, but to collect and preserve them ;
and that the suppression of them is the real source of
the increasing corruption.'^

1 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 220. Scrivener, Introduc-
tion, II, 197 ff. J. Rendel Harris, Origin of the Leicester Codex
of the New Testament, London, 1887. Henry Stevens, 7'Ae
Bibles in the Caxton Exhibition, London, 1877. John Owen,
Of the Integrity and Purity of the Hebrew Text of the Scrip-
tures, with Considerations on the Prolegomena and Appendix to
the late Biblia Polyglotta, Oxford, 1659. B. Walton, The Con-
siderator Considered, London, 1659. S. P. Tregelles, Printed
Text, etc., 38. H. J. Todd, Memoirs of the Life and Writings
of Brian Walton, together vnth the Bishop's Vindication of the
London Polyglot Bible, London, 1821. E. Reuss, article " Poly-
glottenbibeln" in Herzog's Beal-Encyklopadie.

2 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 222. Scrivener, Introduc-
tion, II, 198. Tregelles, Pnnted Text, 39.

CURCELL^US, FELL, AND MILL 67

Fell. — It was with a view to counteract the unfavour-
able impression created by Walton and Curcellseus,
that John Fell, Dean of Christ Church, and subse-
quently Bishop of Oxford, issued his Greek Testament
at Oxford in 1675. It was of small size, with the
various readings at the foot of the pages, along with
the authorities by which they were supported. The
title-page announced that the text was drawn from
more than a hundred manuscripts. The margin con-
tained citations from the Memphitic and Gothic Ver-
sions. He gave the readings of a very few manuscripts
not previously collated, and added in his appendix the
Barberini collection of readings.^

Fell's text was mainly that of the Elzevir of 1633.
Little attention was given to patristic testimony.-

Mill. — Walton, Curcellgeus, and Fell, particularly
the last, prepared the way for John Mill, whose edition
of the Greek Testament, published in folio, Oxford,
1707, marked the foundation of textual criticism. His
preparations for the work were begun about 1677, and
were encouraged and promoted by Fell, and later by
the patronage of Queen Anne. His merit was largely
that of a collector of critical material. He gave much
attention to patristic testimony, and also to the Yul-

1 This was a collection made by John Matthew Caryophilus
of Crete, about 1625, with a view to an edition of the Greek
Testament. It is described as " Collationes Grseci contextus
omnium librorum Novi Testamenti juxta editionem Antverpien-
sem regiam cum XXII codicibus antiquis MSS.' ' This was edited
by Peter Poussin in 1673, and was found in the Barberini Library
at Rome, in 1785, by Andrew Birch, along with the petition of
Caryophilus to Pope Paul V for the loan of six manuscripts in
the Vatican. These included B, and S (tenth century), which is
among the earliest dated manuscripts of the Greek Testament.
The Barberini readings often favour the Latin Version, and have
been superseded.

2 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 222. Scrivener, Litroduc-
tion, II, 199 f. Tregelles, Printed Text, 40.

68

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Fore-

method.

gate and Itala. His knowledge of Oriental languages
was limited, so that he was obliged to depend mainly
on the Latin translations in Walton's Polyglot.

As a collator, he was not accurate according to the
modern standard of textual scholarship. He collected
rather than classified manuscripts, although he fre-
quently records his judgment of the value of readings,
and exhibits a foreshadowing of the genealogical
shadows the method in noting relationships between manuscripts,
"' '* ' and between manuscripts and particular versions.
The catalogue of his manuscripts may be seen in Tisch-
endorf. Prolegomena, 226. He made no attempt to
construct a new text, but used that of Stephen's
3d ed., varying from it in a few places. His Prole-
gomena consisted of three parts: (1) The canon of
the New Testament. (2) The history of the text,
including quotations of the Fathers and early editions.
(3) The plan and contents of his own work. Of the
Prolegomena Dr. Scrivener says, "Though by this
time too far behind the present state of knowledge to
bear reprinting, they comprise a monument of learning
such as the world has seldom seen, and contain much
information the student will not even now easily find
elsewhere." His New Testament was republished in
folio, in 1710, at Amsterdam and Rotterdam, by
Ludolph Kuster, who arranged in its proper places
the matter which Mill had put into his appendix,
because he had received it too late for incorporation
into his critical notes. He added the readings of
twelve fresh manuscripts. He was the first to give a
definite statement of the number of various readings
in the New Testament text, estimating them at thirty
thousand, a number which appears trifling in the light
of later critical results.^

1 Mill's Testament was attacked by Dr. Whitby in 1710. The
details of the controversy may be read iu Tregelles's Printed

First esti-
mate as to
number of
variations.

MAESTRICHT, TOINARD, AND WELLS 69

Gerhard von Maestricht, Toinard, Wells. — The year
after tlie appearance of Kuster's Mill, Gerhard von
Maestricht published at Amsterdam a New Testament
in 8vo, containing all the critical matter of Fell's
edition, a collation of one Vienna manuscript, forty-
three canons for the examination of various readings
and discussions upon them, with other matter, es-
pecially parallel texts. The text is Fell's. A second
improved edition was issued in 1735. This appears
to have been the first attempt to lay down canons for
various readings.-^

The Evangeliorum Harmonia Grceco-Latina of Nich-
olas Toinard, of Orleans, was published in the same
year as Mill's New Testament. Toinard was the
first Eoman Catholic since Erasmus, and the last be-
fore Scholtz (1830), who undertook a critical edition.
In his Prolegomena he announces that he has made a
Greek Testament according to the two oldest Vatican
codices and the Old Latin Version, where it agreed
w4th them. He was thus working on the same prin-
ciple afterward proposed by Bentley.^

Edward Wells put forth an edition, 1709-19, in ten
parts, containing a Greek text, an English version
and paraphrase, critical and exegetical notes, and
historical dissertations. More boldly than his prede-
cessors, he introduced new manuscript readings into
the text. His text was marked by frequent departures

Text. It called out Richard Bentley's celebrated monograph,
liemarks upon a Discourse of Free-thinking, by Phileleiitherus
Lipsiensis. See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 224-227. Scrive-
ner, Litroduction, II, 200. Tregelles, Printed Text, 41-49.
Ilort, Westcott and Hort's Xeio Testament, Introduction, 180.
J. II. Monk, Life of Richard Bentley, D.D., London, 1833.

1 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 229. Scrivener, Introduc-
tion, II, 204.

2 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 227 f. Reuss characterises
the Harmonia as " liber rarissimus."

Gerhard von

Maestricht's
Testament.

Toinard's
Harmonia.

Wells's
Testament.

70

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Bentley's
Proposals.

Bentley's
hypothesis.

from the Elzevir, and his agreement with later critics,
as Griesbach, Lachmann, and Tischendorf, is note-
worthy.^

It will be noticed that in Toinard and Wells there
appear signs of restlessness under the pressure of the
Textus Receptus, a growing tendency to emphasise
manuscript authority, and attempts at a reconstruction
of the text; while in Gerhard von Maestricht, as in
Mill, we see signs of a movement toward the classifi-
cation of documents.

Bentley. — This " glimpse of the genealogical
method," which was the most important contribution
to the criticism of the period between Mill and Lach-
mann, received a more definite development in the
Proposals of Richard Bentley, Master of Trinity
College, Cambridge. In 1691 he had urged Mill to
publish in parallel columns the Greek text of A and
the Graeco-Latin texts of D, D^, and Eo. In 1720 he
issued his Proposals for printing an edition of the
Greek New Testament and the New Testament of the
Vulgate Version, " per Stum. Hieronymum ad vetusta
exemplaria Graeca castigatse et exactse," both from the
most ancient codices, Greek and Latin. The Propo-
sals closed with the last chapter of the Apocalypse in
Greek and Latin as a specimen.

Bentley's hypothesis was, that the oldest manu-
scripts of the Greek original and of Jerome's Vulgate
resemble each other so closely that, by means of this
agreement, he could restore the text as it stood in the
fourth century, so that there should not be a difference
of twenty words, or even particles. " By taking two
thousand errors out of the Pope's Vulgate (the Clemen-
tine), and as many out of the Protestant Pope Stephen
(ed. of 1550), I can set out an edition of each in col-
umns, without using any book under nine hundred

1 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 228.

RICEARD BENTLET 71

years old, that shall so exactly agree, word for word,
and order for order, that no two tallies nor two inden-
tures can agree better." In order to confirm the read-
ings introduced into the text, he proposed to make use
of the Syriac, Coptic, Gothic, and Ethiopia Versions, and
of all the Greek and Latin Fathers within the first five
centuries, and to exhibit all the various readings within
those five centuries.

For the prosecution of this design it was necessary Collections
that the manuscripts of the Vulgate should be collated f^ns^for^'
as carefully as those of the Greek Testament; and Bentley's
much work both in collection and collation was done ^°^ '
by Bentley himself, and by his colleague, John Walker,
in Paris, by Chevalier in Tours, and Casley in Oxford.
Their collations are preserved in the Library of
Trinity College, Cambridge.^ They are more on the
Latin Vulgate than on the original Greek. The most
valuable of the collations, that of B, was procured
about 1720, at Bentley's expense, and by the labour of
the Abbate Mico, and was revised by Abbate Eulotta
in 1729.

These collations are all that remain of Bentley's Importance
enterprise, for the work itself never appeared. Yet
the Proposals mark an important step in the his-
tory of textual criticism. They indicate an advance
toward discrimination in the selection and use of
Greek manuscripts, and a frank and vigorous protest
against the tyranny of the Textus Eeceptus. Bentley
was the first to lay down the great principle that the
whole text is to be formed on evidence, apart from
the influence of any edition. He declared that after
the Complutenses and Erasmus, who had but very
ordinary manuscripts, the New Testament became the
property of booksellers, and that Stephen's text stood
as if an apostle was his compositor. He described

1 See Catalogue in Scrivener's Introduction, II, 89 f.

of the Pro-
posals.

72

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Bentiey's Stephen as the Protestant Pope. Of the text of the
ItateV/ ^^^ Vulgate he asserted that Popes Sixtus and Clement
textual were incompetent to execute its revision, since they

en icism. "vvere mere theologians, without experience in manu-
scripts, using inferior Greek copies, and mistaking
later copies for earlier. He perceived the division-line
between the old and the late codices, and insisted that
the ancient manuscripts are the witnesses of the an-
cient text. He was even prepared to dismiss from con-
sideration the testimony of the whole mass of modern
copies.

"The New Testament," wrote Bentley, "has been
under a hard fate since the invention of printing.

" After the Complutenses and Erasmus, who had but
very ordinary manuscripts, it became the property of

booksellers No heathen author has had such

ill fortune. Terence, Ovid, etc., for the first century
after printing, went about with twenty thousand errors
in them. But when learned men undertook them, and
from the oldest manuscripts set out correct editions,
those errors fell and vanished. But if they had kept
to the first published text, and set the various lec-
tions only in the margin, those classic authors would
be as clogged with variations as Dr. Mill's Testa-
ment is.

" Popes Sixtus and Clement, at a vast expense, had
an assembly of learned divines to recense and adjust
the Latin Vulgate, and then enacted their new edition
authentic; but I find, though I have not discovered
anything done dolo malo, they were quite unequal to
the affair. They were mere theologi, and had no ex-
perience in manuscripts, nor made good use of Greek
copies, and followed books of five hundred years before
those of double age. Nay, I believe they took these
new ones for the older of the two ; for it is not every-
body knows the age of a manuscript."

RICHARD BENTLEY 78

Bentley's proposals were comprised in eight para- Proposals in
graphs : the first spoke of the actual condition of the
printed Greek Testament and the Latin Vulgate, and
the importance of the service of revising both, on the
authority of manuscripts of more than a thousand years
old. The second related to the view which Bentley
took of certain passages in St. Jerome " where he de-
clares, that (without making a new version) he adjusted
and reformed the whole Latin Vulgate to the best
Greek exemplars, that is to say, to those of the famous
Origen," and also of the passage containing Jerome's
statement that the order even of the words is im-
portant in translations of Holy Scripture. From these
passages he concluded that the oldest Greek and Latin
copies ought to agree both in words and in their order,
" and upon making the essay (he says) he has suc-
ceeded in his conjecture beyond his expectation or
even his hopes." In the third paragraph he states his
belief that the mass of various readings may, from his
collations, be so reduced in number as to leave only about
two hundred places in which the true text of a passage
can be a matter of doubt. In the fourth, he says that
he uses as subsidiary, in order to confirm the readings
which he adopts, " all the old versions, Syriac, Coptic,
Gothic, and Ethiopic, and all the Fathers, Greeks
and Latins, within the first five centuries " ; and he
gives in his notes all the various readings (now known)
within the said five centuries. So that the reader has
under one view what the first ages of the church knew
of the text ; and what has crept into any copies since
is of no value or authority. In the fifth paragraph,
Bentley disclaims the use of conjecture altogether in
the text itself of the sacred volume ; the notes are to
contain all the evidence on which every word rests;
and also the common readings of Stephen's Greek and
Clement the Vlllth's Latin are to be plainly exhibited.

74

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Conyers
Middleton
attacks the
Proposals.

Bentley's
faith in his
hypothesis
weakened.

In the sixth, the reader is told that any conjectures of
the editor will be given, as such, in the Prolegomena,
in which, also, there was promised a full account of
the manuscripts, etc., used. The seventh paragraph
informed the reader of the terms of subscription, three
guineas for smaller paper, five for large. The conclud-
ing paragraph promised that the edition should be put
to press as soon as a sufiicient sum was subscribed.

Bentley's proposals were attacked in an anonymous
pamphlet by Conyers Middleton, which was severely
replied to in another anonymous pamphlet, commonly
attributed to Bentley. Middleton rejoined in a longer
and abler pamphlet ; but he was no match for Bentley,
and his reply did not bear upon the critical points at
issue. An unhappy consequence of the controversy
was the impression that criticism could not be safely
applied to the text of the New Testament, and that
it is better to retain traditional readings without
evidence than to revise them according to competent
testimony.

Had Bentley's edition appeared, it would have pre-
sented an invaluable body of critical materials. It
would have been an important contribution to the
establishment of a settled text, and a severe blow at
the traditional Textus Receptus. His text would have
been that of the Greek manuscripts which resemble the
oldest copies of the Vulgate ; but this would have been
only the text current in the West, and not that of the
whole body of Christian readers in the third and fourth
centuries.

But this hypothesis of substantial identity between
the oldest Greek and Latin copies was more favoured
by A than by any other really ancient document.
The impossibility of settling the text by the applica-
tion of this principle appears to have grown upon him,
especially after his acquaintance with the Vatican

BENTLET, MIDDLETON AND MACE 75

readings ; and it is to this that some impute the
abandoumeut of his project.^

Mace. — The revolt against the Textus Receptus was Mace antici-
continued by William (or Daniel) Mace, a Fellow of Pfgfof'''^"
Greshara College, London, who published anonymously, modem
in 1729, a Greek and English Diglott, with the title '^"^'''^•
The New Testament in Greek and English, contain-
ing the Original Text corrected from the Authority of
the Most Authentic Manuscripts, etc. His emenda-
tions agree remarkably with readings approved by
critics of this day. Reuss speaks of him as one whom
his contemporaries unjustly persecuted, and whom
more recent critics much more unjustly consign to
oblivion.^

1 See Tregelles, Printed Text^ 57-68. Tischendorf, Prole-
gomena, 231. Wordsworth, White, and Sanday, Old Latin Bib-
lical Texts, I, XXV. J. H, Monk, Life of JRichard Bentley,
D.D. The Works of Richard Bentley, D.D., collected and
edited by A. Dyce, London, 1836. Bentlei et Doctorum Viro-
rum ad eum Epistolce, 2d ed,, Leipzig, 1825.

2 As Scrivener, Introduction, II, 210, "The anonymous
text and version of William Mace, said to have been a Presby-
terian minister, are alike unworthy of serious notice, and have
long since been forgotten." These words, in which Dr. Scrive-
ner apparently echoes Tregelles {Printed Text, 65), are in
marked contrast with the remarks of Dr. C. R. Gregory, in his
Prolegomena to Tischendorf 's 8th ed., 240. Nestle also alludes
to him as perhaps the boldest deviator from the Received Text
{Einfuhrung, 15).

CHAPTER IX

THE FIRST PERIOD (1516-1770). MOVEMENT
TOWARD THE GENEALOGICAL METHOD

Recognition
of the rela-
tionship of
documents.

Statement
of certain
features of
later criti-
cism neces-
sary for
understand-
ing the
remaining
history.

Textual Criticism now began to feel its way toward
a new method, through the growing recognition of the
relationship of documents, foreshadowed by Mill and
Bentley. This led up to the classitication of all docu-
ments by families — a principle which was first clearly
announced by Bengel in 1734. This principle shapes
the whole subsequent development of New Testament
textual criticism. In order that the remaining stages
of the history may be understood, it will be necessary
to anticipate certain features of later criticism.

It may be well to remind the reader once more that
the problem of Textual Criticism is to extract from all
attainable sources, as nearly as possible, the original
text of the author ; and that this process involves the
comparison of thousands of various readings, and the
selection of those which represent the purest text.

No sound decision as to the comparative value of
readings can be reached by a merely numerical process,
that is to say, by giving preference to that reading
which is contained in the majority of manuscripts ; for
it cannot be asserted that a reading has the majority
of witnesses, until all known manuscripts have been
collated, and all unknown manuscripts have been dis-
covered and collated. There may be enough manu-
scripts unknown and uncollated to turn the scale in
favour of a rejected reading. Moreover, this process
76

QUALITY, NOT NUMBER, OF MANUSCRIPTS 77

takes account only of the number, and not at all of the No correct
quality, of the witnesses. The united value of the readings by
readings of ten manuscripts may not equal that of four a merely
others. The ten may all be of late date and inferior process!^
quality, while the four may include two or three of the
earliest and best.

Thus the clause dAAa pvaai tjfxas airo Tov irovqpov, " de-
liver us from the evil one," which is attested by every
known authority in Matt. 6 : 13, is omitted by the
highest textual authorities from Luke xi. 4. Yet the
evidence in its favour, numerically considered, is very
strong. It is found in ACDEFGH KMRSUVrAATT,
in a number of cursives, in the Old Latin bcfffilq,
and in the Bohairic, Peshitto, Curetonian and Harclean
Syriac, and the Ethiopic Versions. But it is wanting
in S and B. B does not contain it at all, and t< only by
a hand three centuries later than the first. Again, in
Mark 7 : 19, eight later uncials and hundreds of cursives
have the Keceived reading KaOapt^ov -n-avTa to. jSpwfMaTa,
" purging all meats," the neuter participle " purging "
agreeing with the clause "goeth forth into the
draught." On the other hand, i^ABEFGHLSXA
and three Fathers have KaOapC^wv, the masculine partici-
ple, referring to Christ, "This he said, making all
meats clean." The numerical superiority is with the
former reading; the lueight, both of authority and
sense, is with the latter.

Neither can a sound conclusion be reached on the Nor on the
basis of the comparative age of manuscripts. The comparative
important point is the age of the text contained in ageofmanu-
the manuscript relatively to the autograph. A manu- ^^"^ ^'
script of the fourth century may have been copied from
one only a little older than itself, and that in turn
from one only a little older ; while a manuscript of the
eleventh century may have been copied from one of
the third century, and that from the autograph.

78

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

An ancient
text not
necessarily
a pure text.

Intrinsic
and Tran-
scriptional
evidence.

Caution in
the use of
intrinsic
probability.

But an ancient text is not necessarily a pure text.
Some of the worst textual corruptions had entered in
the second century. Therefore the readings must be
scrutinised in order to discover what evidence they
afford of their own purity. To this process two kinds
of evidence are applied, Intrinsic and Transcriptional.
By Intrinsic evidence is meant that which is furnished
by knowledge of the writer's style and habits of
thought ; by grammatical considerations, the nature of
the context, etc. This kind of evidence goes to show
which of several readings of a passage is most likely
to have proceeded from the writer's own hand. By
Transcriptional evidence is meant that which is de-
rived from knowledge of the habits of scribes, and of
the accidents to which they are liable in the process
of transcription. This class of evidence goes to show
which one of several readings the copyist is likely to
have had before him, and which one is most likely to
have been changed into the several various readings.

In the matter of intrinsic probability it is easy to
make a mistake. Conclusions founded upon it are to
be accepted with great caution, because of the ten-
dency of the critic to form his conclusion from his
own point of view or his own environment, rather
than from those of the author. Thus, intrinsic proba-
bility seems to point to the omission of the words,
" Make me as one of thy hired servants," from Luke
15 : 21, repeating the words of ver. 19. From our
point of view it seems unlikely that the restored son,
with the full assurance of pardon, would repeat the
request which he had proposed to himself before his
experience of the riches of fatherly love and forgive-
ness. A large number of manuscripts and most of the
versions omit the words. Westcott and Hort bracket
them ; Tischendorf rejects them. Yet we cannot rest
solely on intrinsic probability from our point of view.

INTRINSIC EVIDENCE

79

The words are attested by X B D U X. Similarly, a
critic may light on an ungrammatical reading and be
tempted to emend on the ground of the intrinsic im-
probability of the writer's grammatical blunder; yet a
larger acquaintance with his habits of composition
may greatly diminish that improbability. So of awk-
wardness of style, or inconsistency. Because Phil.
1 : 22 presents a very awkward construction, because
Rom. 5 : 12 introduces us to a puzzling parenthetical
passage, it cannot be certainly inferred that Paul orig-
inally wrote these in a less awkward form, and that
corruptions have crept into the text, for Paul's writ-
ings are full of such instances.

There are rare instances in which intrinsic proba-
bility may carry the day even against strong manu-
script evidence. In Mark 6 : 22, b^ B D L A give
elcrcXOovar]'? rrjq Ovyarpo^ avrov 'HpwSiaSos kol 6p)(7]aa-

ix€vrj<;, "His daughter Herodias having entered in
and danced." This reading appears in the text of
Westcott and Hort. Yet, in the face of such manu-
script evidence, it is safe to say that Mark could not
have intended this. The statement directly contra-
dicts Josephus, who says that the name of the damsel
was Salome, and that she was the daughter of Herod
Philip, by Herodias, who did not leave her husband
until after Salome's birth. It is, moreover, most im-
probable that even Herod the Tetrarch would have
allowed his own daughter thus to degrade herself.

Conclusions as to transcriptional probability are
somewhat more reliable because of our knowledge of
the habits of scribes. We can detect with some accu-
racy motives for intentional alteration and reasons for
unintentional errors. It is easy to understand how a
scribe might think himself in duty bound to play the
part of a corrector, and conform an unfamiliar in-
flexion or quotation or construction to forms familiar

Intrinsic

probability

occasionally

prevails

against

manuscript

evidence.

80 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

to himself. He might think it incumbent on him
to change TjkOaTe, rjXOav, into rjXOcTe, rj\6ov; or to alter
Xrnixpofxai and 7rpoar(ii7ro\rjix\J/La into X-^if/ofJiaL and irpoa-o)-
TToXtjij/ta for the sake of euphony; or to write rnxepas
instead of rjfiepai in Matt. 15 : 32, on the ground that
correct grammar required the accusative of duration.
Or, again, he might substitute Kpd^av and a7rapd$av for
Kpa^as and o-7rapa|as in Matt. 9 : 26, in order to make
the participles agree with the neuter Trvev/xa. The cor-
rect reading in Mark 1:2 is iv t<^ 'Ho-aca tw Trpocft-JTr),
"in Isaiah the prophet;" but it is apparent that
some scribe found it difficult or impossible to account
for the fact that the quotation from Isa. 40 : 3, " The
voice of one crying," etc., is preceded by a quotation
from Mai. 3:1, " Behold I send my messenger," etc. ;
and accordingly substituted iv rots rrpocfiyTaLs, "in the
prophets."

Intentional alterations may also have proceeded
from the desire to amplify. It is well known that
copyists were in the habit of making a quoted passage,
for instance, as full as possible, through fear of losing
something which the writer had said. For example.
Matt. 15 : 8. The Eeceived Text is iyyt^a fxoL 6 Aaos
ouros TiS (XTOfxaTL avTo}v, koI rots ^(ctAecrt' fxe ri/xa, " This
people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth and
honoureth me with their lips." The best modern texts
read 6 Aaos ovro'i tol^ ^(etAeo-t fji€ Ti/xa, '^This people hon-
oureth me with their lips." At least fourteen uncials
support the longer reading, yet the wei.t^ht of authority
is in favour of the shorter : i< B D L T, Vulgate, Cure-
tonian, Armenian, ^thiopic, Origen, Chrysostom. The
Eeceived Text is most probably an amplification of
the shorter and genuine reading.
Insertions of It is also well known how habitually copyists in-
one^G(5pe/ serted in one Gospel the readings of another, so as to
in another, bring them into agreement. There is not a manu-

TRANSCRIPTIONAL EVIDENCE 81

script or a version that has not suffered more or less
in this manner.

As for unintentional errors, there are many ways in Causes of
which they have slipped into the text; as by con- JioJJ^af""
founding letters of similar appearance, omitting an errors,
entire verse when two successive lines or sentences
end with the same word, and the scribe has mistaken
the second ending for that which he has just writ-
ten ; misreadings of abbreviations ; adopting marginal
glosses into the text, etc. See Chapter II. Such know-
ledge of the habits of scribes may help us greatly in
determining what reading the copyist is likely to have
had before him, and which of several readings is most
likely to have been changed into another or several
others. In any case in which intrinsic and transcrip- Concur-
tional probability concur, the concurrence makes in 5®P^® ^^ ^?-

triUSlC 3.D(1

favour of the reading. In Phil. 1 : 7, for example, transcrip-
ts B D'^'= E K L P repeat iv. In A D F G the second iv, abmty^''''^"
before rrj aTroXoyia, is omitted. Now intrinsic proba-
bility is in favour of the repetition of the eV, because
there are two distinct specifications, "in my bonds"
and " in the defence and confirmation of the Gospel."
But the copyist omitted h before t-q d-n-oXoyta, because
he did not find it before (ScfSatwarcL, not observing that
it was not needed before that word because ^c/SaMcru
was included with rrj drroXoyia under one article. Thus
transcriptional probability and intrinsic probability
concur in favour of the repetition of h.

Again, take the manifest solecism in Phil. 2 : 2,
TL<i a-rrXdyxva, which is Overwhelmingly supported by
all the principal uncials and by nearly all the versions,
while the proper, grammatical reading, nva, appears in
only a few minuscules and Fathers. Intrinsic proba-
bility is entirely against the attested reading, and tran-
scriptional probability clearly points to a copyist's
hasty and careless repetition of ns from the preceding

82

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

clause. Another instance may be found in Phil. 2 : 15,
where the correct reading is a/xw/xa, according to i< A B C.
But D F G K LP read d/xw/xTyra. Paul is citing Deut.
32 : 5. *AixiOfx,-qTo<: does not occur in the LXX, but
fi(i)fir)Td " blameworthy " appears in that passage.
Hence, while it is intrinsically probable that Paul wrote
oifXiOfjLa, it is transcriptionally probable that the scribe,
finding fxwjxrjTa in the LXX, changed dfitDfia into dixwfxrjTo.
to correspond.

But, valuable as this internal evidence for separate
readings is, it cannot be trusted by itself. Scrutiny of
separate readings must be supplemented by the study
of the several documents as wholes. It is fair to assume
that the credibility of a reading, however plausible on
grounds of intrinsic and transcriptional evidence, may
be affected by the general credibility of the document
or class of documents in which it appears. It is quite
possible that a reading approved by internal evidence
should be found in a document or a class of documents
which show signs of corruption. That fact would not
conclusively discredit the reading, but it would lay it
open to suspicion. Let it be constantly borne in mind
that we have nothing to do with the doctrinal or other
qualities and bearings of the text. The sole object is
to reach the text itself in its primitive form. It is a
very simple and generally accepted principle that our
estimate of the particular details of a book is to be
affected and modified by the general character of the
book. Any biography of Luther, for instance, may
contain truthful details ; yet if a question should arise
as to the correctness of any detail, our judgment
would be inevitably and justly modified by the charac-
teristics of the biography at large. We could not help
noting that D'Aubigne deals in wordy panegyric ; that
Audin betrays strong partisan tendencies ; that a dis-
tinct theological bias pervades the treatment of Luther

AOE OF TEXT 83

by Newman, Bossuet, and Mozley, and that all these Knowledge

are in strong contrast with the sober, dispassionate ments

accuracy of Kostlin. Thus we reach the accepted prin- naust pre-

C6de iuufif-
ciple of textual criticism, that knowledge of documents ment on

must precede formal judgment on readings. readings.

This principle requires the student to consider the
age of documents and the age of the texts which they
contain — two quite distinct questions, since a late
document may have been copied from an early text.
It is unsafe to estimate the weight of a document by
its age alone. Its real weight depends upon the age of Weight of
its text. This must first be settled by the careful and depeSiTon
minute collation of versions and citations, noting all age of text.
readings which prove themselves to be ancient. Then
each manuscript is to be compared with this list of
readings, and any manuscript found to contain a con-
siderable proportion of these or of older readings
may be noted as containing an ancient text. If we
find a number of manuscripts exhibiting a text similar
to this, the collected readings of all these will repre-
sent, generally, the character of the earlier text.

This is a great point gained, yet it still remains to An early-
show that this early text is a pure text. The purity of necessarily
a text does not follow from its early date. We know, a pure text,
for example, that extensive corruptions had found their
way into the text of the second century. Accordingly,
since our earliest witnesses differ at certain points, we
are compelled to push our examination farther, and to
test the purity of the text. Here we are thrown back
again upon internal evidence, and the only kinds of
evidence we have are those already applied to separate
readings, namely, intrinsic and transcriptional evi-
dence ; only we now apply these two kinds of evidence
to whole documents, instead of to individual readings
merely. By comparing the readings of two documents
in all their variations, we obtain the materials for

84

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Intrinsic
and tran-
scriptional
evidence ap-
plied to
documents.

Not reason-
ing in a
circle.

ascertaining the leading merits and defects of each.
There are usually enough readings which strong intrin-
sic and strong transcriptional probability combine iu
attesting, to enable us to reach a sound judgment.
Suppose that we are required to pronounce upon the
comparative textual purity of two documents, repre-
sented by T and X. We shall first note all their points
of difference. Next, we shall proceed to discover
which reading, in each case, approves itself as origi-
nal according to the tests of transcriptional and in-
trinsic evidence. We thus obtain two lists of readings,
and can easily determine what proportion of original
readings is contained in each. If T shall be found to
contain the larger proportion of preferred readings, and
X to contain habitually the rejected rival readings, we
are entitled to conclude that the text of T has been
transmitted in comparative purity, and that the text
of X has suffered comparatively large corruption. Not
only so, but the purer character of T thus shown may
affect our decision in the case of certain readings pre-
ferred in X, and lead us to revise and possibly to
change it. The same process would be pursued if we
had a dozen or fifty or two hundred documents in-
stead of two.

It might be objected, indeed, that we employ the
evidence of separate readings in order to reach our
estimate of the value of the text of a document as a
whole, and that therefore, when it is said that the
relative textual value of each document must be fixed
before we are in a position to decide upon separate
readings, we are reasoning in a circle. But the pro-
cess by which Ave determined the value of the docu-
ment as a whole is tentative. Our general estimate
may be sound, although we may not be able to trust
absolutely all our impressions as to the probabilities
of reading. The general conclusion as to the docu-

TBEGELLES'S CLASSIFICATION 85

ment as a whole does not imply that our estimate of
every separate reading has been correct. In studying
the intrinsic and transcriptional evidence of readings
" we endeavour to deal with each variation separately,
and to decide between its variants immediately, on
the evidence presented by the variation itself in its
context, aided only by general considerations. In the
other case (estimating the comparative textual value
of entire documents) we begin with virtually perform-
ing the same operation, but only tentatively, with a
view to collect materials, not final results ; on some
variations we can without rashness predict at this
stage our ultimate conclusions ; on many more we can
estimate various degrees of probability ; on many
more again, if we are prudent, we shall be content to
remain for the present in entire suspense. Next, we
pass from investigating the readings to investigating
the documents by means of what we have learned
respecting the readings. Thirdly, we return to the
readings, and go once more over the same ground
as at first, but this time making a tentative choice
of readings simply in accordance with documentary
authority." ^

The results of this comparative criticism applied Tregelles's
to New Testament documents may be illustrated by tio?of docu-
Tregelles's classification. (1) Uncials of the most ments.
ancient class, those earlier than the seventh century,
^5 B D Z. (2) Good later uncials which frequently
accord with these, L X A. (3) Important cursives,
generally supporting the most ancient documents, 1,
22, 33, 39, 209. (4) Later uncials.^

Yet the estimate of the character of documents by individual
this process is not exhaustive. The problem would documents
be simpler if each document were homogeneous; but geneous.

1 Hort, Introduction, § 40.

^Account of the Printed Text of the New Testament^ 132.

86

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Criticism
investigates
the rationale
of the com-
bination of
documents.

Genealogy
of docu-
ments.

such is not the case. A document may be sound in
one part and unsound in another. A manuscript
containing several books may have been transcribed
from different copies not equally good ; or the text of
a document may have been compounded of two or
more texts of different descent, so that the document
has a divided individuality. In such cases a body of
readings common to a group of manuscripts represents
parts of a manuscript which, for these parts, lay at
the root of all the manuscripts in the group. This
process of grouping does not account for the combina-
tion of the manuscripts. It simply evolves the fact of
combination. Criticism, then, goes one step farther,
and inquires into the rationale of the combination. It
proceeds upon the principle that all trustworthy
restoration of corrupted texts is founded on the study
of their history ; that is, of the relations of descent
or affinity which connect the several documents. It
classifies documents according to their origin, and
arranges the several groups in a genealogical tree,
which exhibits their common or proximate origin.
"The practice of internal evidence of groups is inde-
pendent of any genealogical considerations. It pro-
ceeds, and must proceed, in utter ignorance of all
genealogies. . . . All it knows is, Here are docu-
ments united. All it asks is. Do they form a good
or a bad combination ? Yet, behind internal evidence
of groups, the student will see genealogies clamouring
for recognition. He notes the peculiarities of the
groupings, — some groups frequently occurring, others,
apparently equally possible, never occurring at all. He
notes the verdicts of internal evidence of groups, —
some groups uniformly condemned, others, apparently
just like them, almost as uniformly commended. . . .
The student would be something other than human if
he did not wish to know the cause of all this. And

GENEALOGY OF MANUSCRIPTS Si

the hope lies close that all may be explained, and a
new and powerful engine of criticism be put into our
hands by the investigation of the genealogical affilia-
tions of the manuscripts, which are suggested by these
facts. The results of internal evidence of groups
suggest not only the study of genealogies, but also
certain genealogical facts on which that study may
be begun. Every one must suspect that manuscripts
that are frequently in company are close of kin.
Every one must suspect that the groups which support
little else but corruptions are composed of the remain-
ing representatives of a corrupt stock. Everybody
must perceive that if such hints are capable of being
followed out, and the New Testament documents
arranged in accordance with their affiliations, we shall
have a means of reaching the true text which will
promise more than all other methods combined." ^

Bengal. — The principle of classifying manuscripts
by families was first definitely propounded by John
Albrecht Bengel, Superintendent of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church of Wiirtemburg, and widely known
to ISTew Testament students by his Grnomon Novi
Testamenti.

In 1725 Bengel attached to an edition of Chrysos- Bengel's
tom's De Sacerdotio his Prodromus Novi Testamenti Testament.
Grceci recte cauteque adomandi, in which he fore-
shadowed the characteristics of his edition of the
New Testament, which appeared in 1734. The title
of his New Testament set forth that the text was to
exhibit the " marrow " of approved editions, the mar-
gin a selection of parallel passages and various read-
ings, distributed into their classes, and the critical
apparatus the compendium, supplement, and fruit of
sacred criticism, especially Mill's. The text was in

1 Professor B. B. Warfield, Textual Criticism of the New
Testament.

88 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

two columns, and the lower margin exhibited various
readings in five classes: '^genuine, better than the
readings in the text, equal to the readings in the text,
inferior, not to be approved." The Apparatus Criti-
cus, forming the second part of the work, contained
an elaborate dissertation on the Criticism of the New
Testament Text. A small edition appeared the same
year at Stuttgart, without the critical apparatus. He
collated sixteen manuscripts, but not thoroughly. He
did not propose to give all the readings of these manu-
scripts, but only the more important. He stated the
evidence for and against each reading.

Bengel clearly perceived that no reliance was to be
placed on evidence drawn from the mere numerical
majority of readings apart from their origin and char-
acter ; and that, therefore, witnesses were to be weighed
and not counted. He was the first to recognise clearly
the importance of the principle of transcriptional proba-
bility, viz. that it was more probable that a copyist
would try to explain an obscure passage, or to make a
hard construction easier, than that he would make
difficult what was already easy. Hence his familiar
The difficult canon, " The difficult is to be preferred to the easy
be^^referred ^'^ading " (" Proclivi scriptioni praestat ardua "). The
to the easy text, arranged in paragraphs, exhibits an intentional
departure from the Eeceptus, marked nevertheless by
extreme caution, since he refused to admit, except in
the Apocalypse, any reading which had not appeared
in one or more preceding editions.

Bengel's chief title to notice as a textualist lies, as
already intimated, in his fuller recognition and appli-
cation of the principle of families of texts ; all extant
witnesses being thrown into companies, families, tribes,
and nations.^

1 His own statement of his principle may be seen at length
in Scrivener's Introduction, II, 212, note.

one

J. A. BEN GEL

89

He divided all extant documents, broadly, into an- Bengei's
cient and modern, under the names African and Asi- manu-^^ ^^
atic. The Asiatic proceeded mostly from Constantinople scripts,
and its neighbourhood, and were inferior to the African,
which were fewer, more ancient, and more valuable.
The African he subdivided into two tribes, represented
respectively by A, the only great uncial much known
in his day, and the Old Latin Version. He held that
no Asiatic reading was likely to be genuine unless
supported by some African document. He did not
thoroughly carry out his theory, partly through fear
of exposing the truth to ridicule (" ne risuum periculo
exponatur Veritas ").^

But one edition of Bengei's New Testament was
issued. His text, however, was frequently reprinted,
and was the standard of the revision of the Authorised
Danish Version, made in 1745 by the authority of the
King of Denmark. Up to the time of his death, in
1752, he continued to enlarge and correct his critical
apparatus, the enlarged edition of which was pub-
lished, in 1763, under the care of Philip David
Burk. He was particular as to punctuation, and his

1 The list of his codices is as follows : —

Aug. 1 : Evv 83

Dionysianus (ex Johanna Ga-

Aug. 2 : Evv 84

gneio) Act 40 ?

Aug. 3 : Evv 85

Gehl : Evv 89

Aug. 4 : Evrin 24

Hirs : Evv 97

Aug. 6 : Paul 54

Mosc: VEvv

Aug. 6 : Act 46 Paul 55

Par. 10 : (ex Simonio)

Aug. 7 : Apoc. 80

Uff. 1 : MP"*"!

Bas. o : EEvv

Uff. vel Uff. 2 : Act 45 Paul 62

Bas. (i : Evv 2

Apoc. 16

Bas. 7 : Ew 1

Uff. 3 : Ew 101

Byz: Evv 86

Cam : E w (a Joachimo Came-

^::^:}-^»>«»

rario conlati)

90

TEXTUAL CRIiICISM

J. J. Wet-
stein.
His Prole-
gomena.

Assails Ben-
gel's critical
principles.

division into paragraphs was frequently adopted in
England.^

Wetstein and Semler. — In 1713 John James Wet-
stein, or Wettstein, Deacon of Basle, prepared a dis-
sertation on Various Readings in the New Testament.
In 1716 he met Bentley in England, and at his in-
stance went to Paris in order to collate Codex Ephraemi
(C), which he did with great labour and patience. In
1718 he published a specimen of various readings,
which brought upon him a charge of Arian and So-
cinian heresy, and resulted in his deposition and in
his expulsion from Basle in 1730.

In the same year his Prolegomena were published
anonymously at Amsterdam, giving an outline of his
proposed edition of the New Testament and an account
of his critical authorities. The edition was described
as " acuratissima," derived from the oldest New Testa-
ment manuscripts, and treating of the manuscripts of
the New Testament, the Greek writers who have made
use of it, the ancient versions, the former editors, and
the distinguished interpreters ; besides " animadver-
siones et cautiones " for the examination of the various
readings of the New Testament.

In 1735 he wrote the preface to a new edition of
Gerhard von Maestricht's Greek Testament, in which
he referred to the labours of Bengel, for whom he had a
great contempt. He severely reviewed Bengel's Tes-
tament immediately upon its appearance, and endeav-
oured to disparage the critical principles on which

1 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 186, 241 f. Scrivener, Intro-
duction, II, 210 ff. Hort, Westcott and Hort's Greek Testa-
ment, Introduction, 180. Tregelles, Printed Text, 68-73. Life
of Bengel, in the translation of the Gnomon by C. T. Lewis and
M. R. Vincent, Philadelphia, 1800. J. Chr. Fr. Burk (Bengel's
great-grandson), Johann Albrecht BengeVs Leben und [Virken,
Stuttgart, 1831. Article "Bengel," in Herzog's Real-Encyklo-
pddie. E. Nestle, Bengel als Gelehrter, Tubingen, 1893.

WETSTEINS'S NEW TESTAMENT 91

Bengel had selected liis readings, asserting that read-
ings should be adopted which are supported by the
greatest number of nianuscripts, and entirely ignoring
the theory of families.

In 1751-52 appeared his edition of the New Testa- Wetstein's
ment, in two volumes folio, with various readings of Testament,
manuscripts, other editions. Versions, and Fathers ;
also with a commentary illustrating the history and
force of words from ancient writers, — Hebrew, Greek,
and Latin. The influence of the Textus Receptus was
still apparent, although, in his critical remarks, he laid
down the principle that the prescription of the com-
mon text should have no authority whatever. His
text was the Elzevirian with a few changes. The read-
ings which he preferred, and which amounted to less
than five hundred, mostly in the Apocalypse, were
placed below the text. It is said that he adopted the
Received Text at the request of the Remonstrants or
Arminians, whom he had joined on leaving Basle. The
various readings were afterward inserted in the text
of a Greek Testament published in London, in 1763,
by W. Bo^vyer. Although his Prolegomena of 1730
had announced that his edition was to be derived from
the oldest manuscripts, and although he had originally
shown a disposition to take Codex A as the basis of his
text, his views as to the oldest Greek uncials had evi-
dently undergone a change before the publication of
his Testament, in which he attacked the whole body of
the older codices under the name of " codices Latini-
zantes," as being conformed to the Latin Version.
Everything in them which agreed with the Latin was
denounced as an interpolation from that version.

But notwithstanding Wetstein's defects, his services Services to
to the cause of textual criticism were of great value. crUicfsm.
The number of manuscripts collated by him was a
little over a hundred, and about eleven were examined

92

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Semler edits
Wetstein's
Prole-
gomena.

Expands
Bengel's
theory of
families.

for him by others. Besides his own collations, he
collected the collations of Mill and others, and reex-
amined many of the Versions and Fathers. His col-
lations, though not up to the modern standard of
accuracy, were more careful than had been usual. He
was the first to investigate the Philoxenian Version.
He was superior to Bengel as a collator, and his know-
ledge of authorities was more extensive ; but he was not
Bengel's equal in judgment. He was more acute in
observing phenomena than accurate in accounting for
them. His critical disquisitions were disfigured by
the introduction of his personal controversies ; but his
account of the Versions, Fathers, and early editions was
the most extensive and methodical that had ever been
published ; and his " animadversiones et cautiones " in
his second volume were discriminating and valuable.^

Wetstein's Prolegomena were reprinted at Halle, in
1765, by Johann Salomo Semler, Professor of Theology
at Halle. Semler was the leader of the reaction in
Germany against the traditional views of the canon of
Scripture. His edition of Wetstein bore the title,
Wetstenii Lihelli ad Crisin et Interpretationem Novi
Testamenti. It contained notes and remarks of his
own, with facsimiles of manuscripts. He defended
the Graeco-Latin codices against Wetstein's charges.
Still later, in 1831, the Prolegomena were issued in a
condensed form by J. A. Lotze, Rotterdam.

Semler took up Bengel's theory of families and ex-
panded it. Pie was the first to apply the term " Re-
cension " to the ancient texts, an error which has
caused some confusion. A Recension is properly a
work of criticism by editors ; but it is used, even by
some modern critics, as synonymous with " family." ^

1 A summary of the principal points is given by Tregelles,
Printed Text, 79 f.

2 See Tregelles, Printed Text, 84.

TEE FIRST PERIOD REVIEWED 93

Semler classified mauuscriptSj at first, under two " Re-
censions": (1) Oriental, or that of Lucian ; (2) West-
ern or Egypto-Palestiniau, and that of Origen, agree-
ing with the Itala, the Memphitie, and the Armenian.
The Vulgate, he thought, proceeded from a less ancient
text. In 1767 he made three recensions : (1) Alexan-
drian, used by the Egyptian writers, the pupils of
Origen, and the Syriac, Memphitie, and Ethiopic Ver-
sions ; (2) Oriental, used at Antioch and Constantino-
ple ; (3) Western. In the later codices he thought
that all the recensions were mixed. Like Bengel, he
insisted that codices were to be weighed and not num-
bered.^

A review of the first period exhibits, in the begin- Review of
ning, a scarcity of documentary sources, an arbitrary period!
determination of the text on a false and narrow basis,
and a general ignorance of the comparative value of
documents. The small number of manuscripts acces- Obstacles.
sible or used was only one of the obstacles which
opposed the purification of the text. Scholars were
unable to make the best choice from among those
actually at hand, or were not accurate in comparing
them, or estimated the value of readings according to
their number. "In consequence of the astonishing
number of copies which appeared at the very begin-

1 Semler's editorial work on Wetstein is sharply criticised by
Tregelles, Printed Text, 82.

On Wetstein: Tisctiendorf, Prolegomena, 243 ff. C. R.
Hagenbach, J. J. Wetstein der Kritiker und seine Gegner,
Zeitschr. filr d. histor. Theologie, Leipzig, 1839, Bd. IX, fasc. 1.
Tregelles, Printed Text, 73-82. Carl Bertheau, article " Wett-
stein," Herzog's Real-Encyklopadie.

On Semler : Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 187, A. Tholuck's
article "Semler," in Herzog's Real-Encyklopddie, rev. by
Tzschimer. J. S. Semler, Hermeneutische Vorbereitung, Halle,
1765. Id., Apparatiis ad Liheralem N. T. Interpretationem^
Halle, 1767.

94 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

ning, in a long series of manual editions, mostly from
one and the same recension, the idea grew up spon-
taneously very early that in the manuscripts also the
text was tolerably uniform, and that any thorough
revision of it was unnecessary and impertinent. The
Oriental Versions were closed to most; the impor-
tance of the Church Fathers was scarcely suspected ;
but the greatest lack of all for the purification of the
text was the indispensable knowledge of the process
of its corruption " (Keuss). Moreover, the beginning
of the seventeenth century was marked by the rise of
the Purist controversy. The Purists maintained that
to deny that God gave the New Testament in any-
thing but pure classical Greek was to imperil the
doctrine of inspiration. The Wittemberg Faculty, in
1638, decreed that to speak of barbarisms or solecisms
in the New Testament was blasphemy against the
Holy Ghost. Hence, a correct conception of the
peculiar idiom of the Apostles was impossible, and
the estimate of different readings was seriously
affected by this cause. Keadings of existing edi-
tions were arbitrarily mingled, the manuscripts em-
ployed and the sources of variants adopted were not
properly specified, and a full survey of the apparatus
was impossible.^

The number of uncial sources, however, gradually
increased; the existence of various readings was
recognised, but they were merely registered, and not
applied to the construction of a purer text. There

1 A useful table, showing the dates at which the extant Greek
uncials of the sixth and earHer centuries, with five others of
later date but comparatively ancient text, have become avail-
able as evidence from 1550 down to 1880, may be found in Dr.
Hort's Introduction to Westcott and Hort's Greek Testament,
14, 16. The table exhibits the dates of imperfect publication
by selection of readings, of tolerably full collations, and of con-
tinuous texts.

THE FIRST PERIOD REVIEWED 95

began to be signs of revolt against the authority of Signs of im-
the Textus Receptus and attempts to restore the text P'^ovement.
on the evidence of manuscript readings. There arose
a growing distrust of the numerical basis of evidence.
Manuscripts began to be weighed instead of counted.
There was a dawning recognition of the value of
ancient documents and a corresponding effort to
formulate principles of classification. A large mass
of material, relating to manuscripts, Fathers, and Ver-
sions, was collected, which awaited thorough sifting
and arrangement, and the doctrine of families of texts
was broached. Through all the Received Text sub-
stantially maintained its supremacy, though its preten-
sions were boldly challenged by individual critics ; its
chain was rudely shaken and more than once broken,
and its authority began to be visibly weakened.

For twenty years after the appearance of Wetstein's
edition little progress was made in the arrangement
and application of the large accumulations, and no
attempt to carry out the suggestions of Bentley, Ben-
gel, and Semler respecting the classification of docu-
ments. In England, the attention of students was
directed to the study of the Hebrew Scriptures. The
superstitious hesitancy about departing from the Re-
ceived Text still prevailed, and the critical valuation
of the older uncials was suffering seriously from
Wetstein's sweeping charge of latinisation.

CHAPTER X

THE SECOND PERIOD: TRANSITION FROM THE
TEXTUS RECEPTUS TO THE OLDER UNCIAL
TEXT (1770-1830). GRIESBACH

In studying this period we shall observe an en-
larged comparison of the three sources of the text
and an issue of critical canons. We shall see that the
dominion of the Textus Eeceptus is not overthrown,
but that that text is gradually improved, and that
there is a growing departure from it in the direction
of an older and better text.

The great name which marks the real inauguration
of this period is that of John Jacob Griesbach, 1745-
1812; but before considering his work, something
should be said of several others from whose labours he
derived valuable aid.

In 1776 Edward Harwood, of London, issued an
edition, applying the Codex Cantabrigiensis (D) in
the Gospels and Acts, the Codex Claromontanus (D2)
in the Pauline Epistles, and the Codex Alexandrinus
(A) where these were wanting. He departed con-
siderably from the Elzevir text, and presented a num-
ber of new readings, many of which are approved by
modern critics.

Christian Frederic Matthaei, a Thuringian, was
Professor at Wittemberg and afterward at Moscow,
where he found a quantity of Greek manuscripts, both
biblical and patristic, originally brought from Mt.

96

a critic.

C. F. MATTH^I 97

Athos, uncollated, aud almost entirely unknown in
Western Europe.^

From these materials he prepared an edition of the
New Testament, the first volume of which was pub-
lished at Kiga in 1782, and the remainder at intervals
during the next six years. The whole formed twelve
thin volumes, each containing a preface, with fac-
similes of manuscripts. The Greek text was accom-
panied with a Latin Version. His second edition, in
three volumes, 1803-1807, omitted the Latin Version
and most of the critical notes. In this edition he
speaks of having made collations of fresh manuscripts,
but these have disappeared. With good scholarship,
he was ignorant of critical principles and of what had Character;
been accomplished by former editors, not having
seen, when he began, the editions of either Mill or
Wetstein. He was unable to estimate the comparative
value of codices. He was a laborious and thorough
collator, but a poor critic. His prefaces were devoid
of arrangement, and his judgments were warped by a
hasty temper, which vented itself especially upon
Griesbach. He utterly repudiated the theory of
families of texts, decried the evidence of patristic
citations, and seconded Wetstein in his depreciation
of the earliest manuscripts. His test of the value of
manuscripts was their agreement with those current
in later times. The manuscripts on which his text
was based were of inferior value, belonging to the
family which Bengel had styled "Asiatic," and which
Griesbach called " Constantinopolitan." His only
claim to notice lies in his excellence as a collator.^

1 To him solely we are indebted for Evan. V, 237-250 ; Acts
98-107 ; P. 113-124 ; Ap. 47-50; nearly all at Moscow. Full
list in Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 249 f.

2 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 249 f. Scrivener, Intro-
duction, II, 216-219. Tregelles, Printed Text, 85.

H

98 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Francis Karl Alter, a Jesuit of Silesia, was Pro-
fessor of Greek at Vienna. His edition of the New
Testament in two volumes, 8vo, Vienna, 1786-87,
was founded on a manuscript in the Imperial Library
at Vienna (Evan. 218, Acts 65, P. 57, Ap. 83), which
had some value, but was not remarkable nor ancient.
This he printed at full length, correcting scribal
errors by Stephen's edition of 1546, and collating
with his text twenty-one other manuscripts from the
Vienna Library. He added readings from the Coptic
Version, from four Slavonic Codices, and from one
Latin Codex.^

Christian VII, King of Denmark, employed to
examine manuscripts in different countries a com-
pany consisting of Andrew Birch, a Lutheran bishop
in Denmark, Jacob G. C. Adler, D. G. Moldenhauer,
and 0. G. Tychsen, a distinguished Orientalist. Their
labours were confined principally to Spain and Italy,
and occupied several years. The results were edited
by Birch in his folio edition of the Four Gospels,
Copenhagen, 1788. The text was Stephen's, 1550, to
which were added the various readings collected by
the company, descriptive prolegomena, and facsimiles.
The readings of B were now published for the first
time, partly from Birch's own collation, and partly
from that made for Bentley. The completion of the
edition was prevented by a fire in the printing-house
in 1795. The various readings collected for the Acts
and Epistles were issued in 1798, and those for the
Apocalypse in 1800. In 1801 the readings accom-
panying the text of the Gospels were revised, reedited,
and printed in a form to correspond with the portions
already issued. Tregelles says that Birch probably
did more than any other scholar in the collation of

1 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 254. Scrivener, Introduc-
tion, II, 220.

J". J. GBIESBACH

99

manuscripts of the New Testament; and Scrivener
speaks in high terms of his conscientiousness and
appreciation of the difficulties of his task, and re-
marks that he was almost the first to open to us the
literary treasures of the Vatican, of Florence, and of
Venice. Quite different was the work of Molden-
hauer and Tychsen in Spain, which was performed in
a slovenly and superficial manner, principally because
of their dislike for Spain and its religion.

While, as already remarked, little if anything was
done for twenty years after Wetstein by way of apply-
ing the accumulations of himself and of his prede-
cessors, the work of accumulation was not arrested.
Besides the collections of Matthsei and Birch, the
texts of several important documents were printed,
among them the New Testament portion of A, edited
by Woide in 1786. Kipling published Codex D in
1793, and Matthsei edited the Greek and Latin Codex
G of Paul's Epistles (Boernerianus, ninth century).
Griesbach, therefore, had the advantage of larger col-
lections than those left by Wetstein. In the twenty
years between the first edition of Griesbach and the
first volume of his second edition, the materials had
increased to double the quantity previously known.

Griesbach was a native of Hesse Darmstadt and a
pupil of Semler. He was, for a short time. Professor
of Divinity at Halle, and afterward at Jena. In 1774
he issued the first part of a Greek New Testament in
which the first Three Gospels were arranged synopti-
cally. The Fourth Gospel and Acts appeared in 1775,
and also the volume containing the Epistles and the
Apocalypse. In 1777 the first part of the work was
reprinted with the Gospels in the usual order. This
portion, with the issues of 1775, form Griesbach^s first
edition. The critical materials were drawn largely
from Wetstein, but he made independent additions.

Work of
Molden-
hauer and
Tychsen,

Important
texts printed
and edited.

J. J. Gries-
bach. His
first edition.

100

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Si/mbolsB
Criticx and
the secoud
edition of
the New
Testament.

Manual
edition.

He did not adopt many new readings, and the Re-
ceived Text, while not wholly followed, was taken as
a basis.^ He gave a number of readings in the margin,
classified according to families.

His Symbolce Criticce, two volumes, 1785, 1793, fur-
ther prepared the way for his second edition. This
had behind it twenty years of wider study, besides the
work of Harwood, Matthaei, Birch, Alter, and others.
The first volume appeared in 1796, the second in 1806.
His critical apparatus was larger than in the first
edition. In his preface he laid down his principles of
criticism and dealt with the history of the text. He
had studied the readings in Origen, had inspected
Codices A and D of the Gospels, and had carefully
examined C. Besides these he had consulted twenty-
six manuscripts of the Gospels, ten of the Acts, fifteen
of Paul, and one of the Apocalypse, with twelve Lec-
tionaries of the Gospels, and two of the Apostles, He
did not exhibit all the results of his own collations nor
of those of his predecessors, his purpose being to use
their material for the illustration of his own principles,
and thus to help students to independent conclusions
concerning readings. In 1805, the year before the issue
of his second volume, he published a manual edition
containing the text and the more important various
readings, but without giving the authorities for the
readings. This edition, differing in some places from
the larger work, represents his matured and final con-
clusions on the New Testament text.

With Griesbach, really critical texts may be said to
have begun. The critical conditions which confronted
him were these: A vast mass of material had been
accumulated ; many manuscripts and versions had been
examined, but the examination had been partial ; the

For details, see Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 246.

J. J. GBIESBACH 101

suggestions of Bengel and Bentley concerning the classi-
fication of manuscripts had been disregarded ; there was
still much hesitancy about departing from the Eeceived
Text ; Wetstein's depreciation of the character of the
most ancient codices had taken effect, and had greatly
impaired the sense of their value. The task which
lay before Griesbach was to vindicate the authority of
the older codices, to classify authorities, and to use
them critically and consistently for the restoration of
the text.

He took issue with Wetstein on the value of the His views of
ancient manuscripts, and followed in the track of ^auuscripts
Bentley, Bengel, and Semler. He adopted the family- and fami-
theory, holding, with Bengel, a twofold division, — ^®^'
Asiatic or Byzantine and African, but, like Semler,
dividing the African into two parts, thus making three
classes, two ancient, and one later. These he denom-
inated Western, Alexandrian, and Constantinopolitan.
The Western, with its numerous glosses, represented
the text which had been in circulation in the earlier
times, but which, owing to the errors of copyists, re-
quired much correction. The Alexandrian was an
attempt to revise this text, and was marked by correc-
tions of grammar and style. The Constantinopolitan,
Bengel's Asiatic, flowed from the other two. The
Western and Alexandrian existed as distinct in the
latter part of the second century. The standard of
the Alexandrian text was Origen. To that family
would belong A, B, C, L (Gospels), and the Egyptian
and some minor Versions. To the Western family
would belong D (Gospels and Acts) and other ancient
copies containing a Latin translation, the Old Latin
and Vulgate, and the Latin Fathers. The Constantino-
politan embraced the great majority of manuscripts,
with the larger proportion of Versions and patristic
writings. In deciding on a reading he relied chiefly

critical
canons

102 TEXTUAL CRITICIf^M

on the evidence furnished by union of families. The
agreement of the Western and Alexandrian he regarded
as particularly important, often decisive. Thus, in
Matt. 19 : 17, he read tl /xe epwras Trcpi tov dyaOov ;
*' Why askest thou me concerning the good ? " instead
of Ti/ae Aeyets dyaOovj ^' Why callest thou me good ? " on
the joint evidence of B D L, the Old Latin and the Vul-
gate. In this reading he is followed by Westcott and
Hort and Tischendorf, and the testimony of i^, which,
of course, he did not know, has been added to that of
his other manuscripts.
Grlesbach's Among the critical canons laid down by Griesbach
are the following : (1) No reading must be considered
preferable, unless it has the support of at least some
ancient testimonies. (2) All criticism of the text turns
on the study of recensions or classes of documents.
Not single documents but recensions are to be counted
in determining readings. (3) The shorter reading is to
be preferred to the longer. This canon rests on the
well-known tendency of scribes to amplify the text,
and to include in it all marginal notes, glosses, etc. It
was probably in this way that the episode of John 8 :
1-11, and the legend of the angel troubling the waters
of the pool of Bethzatha, John 5 : 4, slipped into the
text. If a shorter reading is elliptical, obscure, or
harsh, it is not unlikely that the copyist may have
felt it to be his duty to fill out the ellipsis, or to add
some words in order to render it less obscure or
smoother. (4) The more difficult reading is to be pre-
ferred to the easier. This canon was first laid down
by Bengel. It grows out of the tendency of copyists
to alter what they did not understand into something
which they did understand. A scribe might be puz-
zled by a solecism, or by the irregular use of a word,
or by a Hebraism, or by a want of connexion, and, in
entire good faith, change the reading so as to make it,

J. J. GRIESBACH 103

as he thought, more intelligible. Thus may probably
be explained, in Matt. 6 : 1, the change of SiKaLoa-vvrjv,
^'righteousness," into iXerjixoa-vvrjv, "alms"; and of
d/xapTTy/xaros, " sin," in Mark 3:29, into KptVews, "judg-
ment." (5) Along with this canon and included in
it goes the canon that the reading which, at first
sight, appears to convey a false sense, is to be pre-
ferred to other readings. Thus, in 1 Cor. 11 : 29,
dva^to)?, "unworthily," is omitted by the best texts.
Reading the text with this omission, the first impres-
sion would be that the verse absolutely affirms that he
that eats and drinks does not discern the Lord's body,
and therefore incurs judgment. The difficulty vanishes
when the proper conditional force is given to firj, and
we read, " He that eateth and drinketh, eateth and
drinketh judgment to himself if he do not discern
(or distinguish) the body." Probably the scribe, not
appreciating the conditional force of fxrj, and being
staggered by his false impression of the statement,
imported dva^tws into the passage from ver. 27.

The line of distinction which G-riesbach drew be- Abandoned
tween Alexandrian and Western it was impossible to ffo^ub^ltween
maintain. On this point he virtually abandoned his Alexandrian
former conclusion. In his " Commentarius Criticus," ern. ^^^
1811, he showed that the readings of Origen do not
accord precisely with the Alexandrian Recension to
which he had assigned them. Indeed, the practical
weight of his whole system of recensions was im-
paired by his own declaration that in none of the ex-
isting codices is a recension contained in its purity.
In several, and those our oldest manuscripts, a differ-
ence of recension is apparent in the individual parts.
A, for example, follows one recension in the Gospels,
another in the Pauline Epistles, and still another in
the Acts and Catholic Epistles. The term " Western "
was misapplied, since this type of text is not confined

104

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Inconsis-
tency in his
defercHce to
the Textus
Receptus.

to the "West.^ Moreover, the manuscripts on which the
Textus Receptus is based belong to the Byzantine
family, so that Griesbach's scanty respect for that
family was not consistent with the deference paid in
his edition to the Textus Eeceptus, He did not really
take as his textual basis the ancient texts in which he
professed the most confidence. He did not take the
decisive step of entirely disregarding the Textus Re-
ceptus, and forming a text resting on the best authori-
ties throughout.^

Griesbach's text is the basis of many manual edi-
tions, as those of Schott, Marker, Knapp, Tittmann,
Hahn, and Theile. Hahn's was republished at New
York, in 1842, by Dr. Edward Robinson.^

1 See G. Salmon, Some Criticism of the Text of the New Tes-
tament^ 46 ff.

2 The critical discussion of Griesbach's classification may be
studied in Hort's Introduction to Westcott and Hort's Greek
Testament., 183, and in Scrivener's Introduction, II, 224 ff.
Dr. Hoit, while criticising Griesbach's conclusions, expresses
himself as venerating the name of Griesbach above that of every
other textual critic of the New Testament. He says, " What
Bengel had sketched tentatively, was verified and worked out
with admirable patience, sagacity, and candor by Griesbach,
who was equally great in independent investigation and in his
power of estimating the results arrived at by others." Tre-
gelles says that though his later critical edition is more complete,
and in all respects more valuable, yet, if his system of recen-
sions in its application is the subject of examination, the first
edition is necessary {Printed Text, 84).

8 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 188 ff., 240 ff. Scrivener,
Introduction, II, 216, 222-226. Tregelles, Printed Text, 83-85,
88-92. Hort, Introduction to Westcott and Hort's Greek Testa-
ment, 181-186. Reuss, Bibliotheca Novi Testamenti, 103-204,
and article "Griesbach," in Herzog's Beal-Encyklopadie.
Augusti, ijher Griesbach'' s Verdienste, Breslau, 1812. R. Lau-
rence, Bemarks on the Systematical Classification of Manu-
scripts adopted by Griesbach in his Edition of the Greek Testa-
ment, Oxford, 1814. O. von Gebhardt, article "Bibeltext," in
Herzog's Beal-Encyklopddie.

CHAPTER XI

THE SECOND PERIOD (1770-1830). THE SUCCESSORS
OF GRIESBACH

J. L. Hug (1765-1846), a Roman Catholic Professor Hug pro-
at Freiburg, in liis Einleitung in die Schriften cles Neuen system of
Testament, 1808, proposed, as a corrective of the views recensions,
of Bengel and Griesbach, a new system of recensions.
According to him, the text, in the general mass of
codices, had degenerated, by the middle of the third
century, into the form exhibited in Codex Bezse (D)
of the Gospels, the Old Latin, Sahidic, and to some ex-
tent the Peshitto Versions, and in the citations of
Clement of Alexandria and of Origen in his earlier
works. To this text he gave the name Koivq €K8oa-L<;,
"common edition." He supposed that it received
three separate revisions in the middle of the third
century, — one by Origen, adopted by Jerome, and two
others, by Hesychius in Egypt, and Lucian in Antioch,
both which Jerome condemned, and Pope Gelasius
(492-96) declared to be apocryphal.^ His views were
adopted, with some modifications, notably the rejection
of the Origenian Revision, by J. G. Eichhorn, Ein-
leitung in das Neue Testament, Leipzig, 1827. The
theory has been shown to be baseless, though it
" brought out the fact of the early broad currency of
the Western Text" (Warfield).^

1 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 194.

2 It found, however, a feeble resurrectionist and defender a
few years ago, in Dr. G. W. Samson, The English Bevisers'

106

106

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

It should be added, however, that to Hug's De
Antiquitate Vaticani Codicis Commentatio, 1810, is
due the merit of first placing that document in its true
rank. His conclusion as to its date is generally ac-
cepted by modern critics.^

Scholz. — The backward movement of Matthaei was
seconded by John Martin Augustine Scholz, Roman
Catholic Dean of Theology in the mixed Universit}' of
Bonn, and a pupil of Hug. He was an extensive
traveller, and collected in his journeys a vast amount
of fresh material which appeared in his OurcB CriticjB
in Historiam Textus EvangeUoriim,lleidelheTgylS20'^
his BiUisalikritische Reise, Leipzig, 1823; and his
Novum Testamentum Greece, 4to, Leipzig, 1830, 1836.^

The number of codices registered by him for the
first time was 616, of which, however, he collated en-
tire only thirteen. Scrivener says, "His inaccuracy
in the description of manuscripts which he must have
had before him when he was writing is most weari-
some to those who have had to trace his steps, and to
verify or rather falsify his statements."^

Scholz frequently departed from the Textus Recep-

QreeJc Text shown to he unautliorised except by Egyptian Copies
discarded by Greeks, and to be opposed to the Historic Text of
All Ages and Churches, Cambridge, Mass. Dr. Schaff charac-
terises the treatise as " a curious anachronism,"

1 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 192. Tregelles, Printed
Text, 90. Scrivener, Introduction, II, 270-272. Hort, In-
troduction to Westcott and Hort's Greek Testament, 181-183.

2 For details of Scholz's collections, see Tischendorf, Prole-
gomena, 630-638, 659-665, 679-681, 702-714, 943-945.

8 Dr. C. R. Gregory (Prolegomena to Tischendorf, 192) de-
scribes him as " Itineribus prseclarior quam doctrina, codicum
conlator neglegentissimus." Compare 267. Biirgon speaks of
him as "an incorrigible blunderer." But Dr. Gregory, in a
recent lecture at Union Seminary, spoke in commendatory
terms of Scholz, and asserted that he was a more careful col-
lator than Scrivener.

8CH0LZ 107

tus, and yet, on the whole, preserved it in preference
to that of the Vulgate. In many passages in which
Griesbach had varied from the Textus Receptus, on
the ground of the antiquity of the authorities, Scholz
followed more recent documents on the evidence of
number, thus adhering to readings of the Received Text.

He at first divided documents into five families, — two Scholz's sys-
African (Alexandrian and Western), one Asiatic, one families.
Bj^zantine, and one Cj^prian. Later he adopted Ben-
gel's classification, and maintained that the true text
was to be sought in the Constantinopolitan family,
claiming that this family had always presented one
uniform text, which had become traditional through-
out the Greek Church. This text had been preserved
without serious corruption before Constantinople be-
came the seat of empire, had retained its general
purity in the fourth century, and was retained and
transmitted in the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
He maintained the general unity in text of the Con-
stantinopolitan manuscripts, as against the mutual
discrepancies of the Alexandrian manuscripts and
Versions. According to his classification, then, the
Alexandrian famil}^ would embrace the most ancient
manuscripts, the Old Latin, Jerome's Vulgate, the two
Egyptian and the Ethiopic Versions. The Constan-
tinopolitan would include the later manuscripts gener-
ally, a part of the Old Syriac, the later Syriac, Gothic,
Georgian, and Slavonic Versions, and certain Fathers
from the fourth century onward. His system thus
differed from Griesbach's by the inclusion of Gries-
bach's "Western family in the Alexandrian, and by
assigning the preference to the Constantinopolitan,
which, according to Griesbach, was a resultant of the
Western and Alexandrian.^

1 Tregelles says, Printed Text, 152: "Scholz's first vol-
ume was published in 1830. The second did not appear till

108

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Careful examination would have shown Scholz the
contrary of what he took for granted, namely, the ex-
istence of a standard, public, authorised Constantino-
politan text. Scrivener has shown that the more
modern copies do not contain a uniform text, and
that, "with certain points of general resemblance,
whereby they are distinguished from the older docu-
ments of the Alexandrian class, they abound with
mutual variations so numerous and perpetual as to
vouch for the independent origin of nearly all of
them." 1

Scholz's services consisted mainly in pointing out
the localities of manuscripts. The greater part of the
documents which he was the first to consult were re-
corded in his list, but their readings did not appear in
his collection of variants.

The gravitation of his text toward the Textus Ke-
ceptus made it popular with conservative critics who

1836. Prior to that year I made a particular examination, in
the Gospels, of those readings which he rejects in his inner
margin as Alexandrian ; in the course of this examination, and
with continued reference to the authorities which he cited, I
observed what a remarkable body of witnesses stood in opposi-
tion to the text which he had adopted as Constantinopolitan.
Thus I learned that the most ancient manuscripts were witnesses
against his text ; and not only so, but when I sought to ascertain
the character of these manuscripts themselves, I found that
they were continually supported by many of the older versions.
While engaged in this examination, I went all through St. Mat-
thew's Gospel, writing in the margin of a Greek Testament those
well-supported readings which Scholz rejected. This was, of
course, wholly for my own use ; but I saw that, as a general
principle, the modern manuscripts can have no authority apart
from ancient evidence, and that it is the ancient manuscripts
alone (although comparatively few in number) which show
within what limits we have to look as to the real ancient text."
1 See also Hort, Introduction to Westcott and Hort's Greek
Testament, 144.

FABEWELL TO THE TEXTUS BECEPTUS 109

hesitated at Griesbach's conclusions, and it found
many friends in England. Later (1845), Scliolz re-
tracted his preference for the Constantinopolitan text,
and declared that if a new edition of his Greek Testa-
ment should be called for, he would receive into the
text most of the Alexandrian readings which he had
placed in his margin.^

-Through these years (1770-1830)," says Dr. C. R.
Gregory, " the controversy was between the adherents
of the Received Text and those who preferred to trust
the ancient witnesses. Harwood alone rejected the
Receptus, and he was rejected by his peers. Others,
even Griesbach, showed the futility of holding the
Textus Receptus as a foundation for the construction
of a text. At this point we bid farewell to the Textus Farewell to
Receptus without regret: a new day is dawning — the R^^'^^tus^^
day which seeks the ancient text without hindrance
from the tradition of later ages."

1 See Tiscliendorf, Prolegomena, 192, 193, 255-257. Scrive-
ner, Introduction, II, 226-230. Tregelles, Printed Text, 92-97,
179 ff. J. Scott Porter, Principles of Textual Criticism, Bel-
fast, 1848. F. H. A. Scrivener, A Full and Exact Collation of
about Twenty Gi'eek Manuscripts of the Holy Gospels (hitherto
unexamined) deposited in the British 3Iuseum, the Archiepis-
copal Library at Lambeth, etc., with a Critical Introduction^
Cambridge, 1853.

CHAPTER XII

TRIED PERIOD (1830-81). EFFORTS FOR THE RES-
TORATION OF THE PRIMITIVE TEXT. LACH-

MANN

Lachmann
casts aside
the Textus
Receptus.

Lachmann 's
first New
Testament.

A NEW period began in 1831, when, for the first
time, a text was constructed directly from the ancient
documents without the intervention of any printed
edition, and when the first systematic attempt was
made to substitute scientific method for arbitrary
choice in the discrimination of various readings. To
Carl Lachmann belongs the distinction of entirely
casting aside the Textus Receptus, and placing the
New Testament text wholly on the basis of actual
authority. Lachmann boldly adopted Bentley's prin-
ciple that the entire text is to be formed apart from
the influence of printed editions, on evidence. Dr.
Warfield remarks that if Bentley had completed his
edition, he would have antedated the step of Lach-
mann by a century.

Carl Lachmann was Professor of Classical Philology
in Berlin. He was not a professional theologian, but
a philologist, who had distinguished himself by critical
editions of Latin and German classics.^

In 1831 he published a small edition of the Greek
Testament, with a brief notice of his plan, followed by
a list of the places in which his readings differed from

1 His edition of Lucretius still ranks among standards. A
fourth edition of the text was issued in 1871, and of the Com-
mentary in 1882.

110

LACHMANN 111

those of the common text, and referring the reader for
further information to his article in the Stialien und
Kritiken, (1830, No. 4, 817-845). He declared that
he had followed the usage of the most ancient Ori-
ental churches; that where this was not uniform he
had preferred what was supported by the consensus
of African and Italian authorities ; that where there
was great uncertainty it was indicated partly by en-
closing words within brackets, and partly by placing a
different reading in the margin, the so-called Textus
Receptus being allowed no place.

His larger edition, Novum Testamentum Greece Larger
et Latine, was published in two volumes at Berlin,
1842-50. In this he was aided by the younger
Philip Buttmann, who added the critical apparatus of
the Greek text, and also published a small edition
based on the Codex Vaticanus (1856, 1862, 1865).

Lachmann recognised only two types of text : His types of
Oriental (A, B, C, Origen) and Occidental (D, E, ^^^^'
F, G, oldest Latin Versions, Vulgate, and Western
Fathers from Irenseus down to Primasius for the
Apocalypse). He entirely disregarded Byzantine
authorities and the Syriac and Egyptian Versions.

The text of the larger edition did not vary greatly
from that of the earlier. Only the text of the smaller
edition was wholly based on the sources which he
styled "Oriental," while in the larger, he used the
combined evidence of Eastern and Western authorities.

His object was purely historical, that is, to present
the text in the form in which the most ancient docu-
ments, so far as these were known, had transmitted
it. His text was not put forth as the original or final His aim not
text, but as the oldest attainable text, namely, that of but th?oid-
the fourth century, as an historical basis for further est attain-
iiiquiries which might lead nearer to the primitive * ®*®^-
text.

112

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Rules for
estimating
comparative
weight of
readings.

Lachmann's
use of the
terms

" Eastern "
and " West-
ern."

He laid down six rules for estimating the comparar
tive weight of readings : (1) Nothing is better attested
than that in which all authorities agree. (2) The
agreement has less weight if part of the authorities
are silent or in any way defective. (3) The evidence
for a reading, when it is that of witnesses of different
regions, is greater than that of the witnesses of some
particular place, differing either from negligence or
from set purpose. (4) The testimonies are to be re-
garded as doubtfully balanced when witnesses from
widely separated regions stand opposed to others
equally wide apart. (5) Readings are uncertain which
occur habitually in different forms in different regions.
(6) Readings are of weak authority which are not uni-
formly attested in the same region.

With Griesbach, Lachmann distinguished between
Eastern and Western witnesses ; but the peculiar sense
in which he used those terms caused his meaning
to be misapprehended. Others had used the term
"Oriental" or "Asiatic" to denote the mass of the
more recent manuscripts gathered from the churches
of Syria, Asia Minor, and Constantinople, containing
the text which had, perhaps, originally come into use
in the regions from Antioch to Constantinople, and
classed by Griesbach as "Byzantine." Lachmann
meant by "Eastern" the few ancient codices com-
prised in Griesbach's Alexandrian class. His wit-
nesses were, for the Gospels A, B, C, the fragments
P, Q, T, Z, sometimes D. For the Acts, D, Eo. For
Paul, Da, G2, H3. With these the citations of Origen,
the Greek remains of Irenseus, the Old Latin manu-
scripts a, b, c, and the citations from Cyprian, Hilary
of Poitiers, Lucifer of Cagliari, and Primasius.^

1 The following will explain the notations of those of Lach-
mann's authorities which may be less familiar : —

P, Codex Guelpherbytanus, sixth century, Wolfenbiittel, 518

LACHMANN 113

Through almost a quarter of the New Testament
Lachmann had scarcely any means of deciding how
far the Eastern witnesses varied in readings. There
are passages in which at most two manuscripts, or
perhaps only one, contain the text. Thus an error in
such a copy or copies is assumed to be a widely spread
reading of the fourth century. It is to be remembered,
further, that at that time neither B nor C had been
thoroughly examined. Where his Eastern witnesses
disagreed, he had recourse to Western sources ; and,
these failing, to sources of inferior age and authority.

It is thus evident that his method was too rigid. His method
and the range of his authorities too limited ; and it is *°° "^^^"
not strange that his text was regarded as an innova-
tion, and treated accordingly. If his exposition of
his plan and object had been fuller and simpler, his
work might have met with a better reception. As it
is, " Let any objections be raised to the plan, let incon-
sistencies be pointed out in the execution, let correc-
tions of varied kinds be suggested, still the fact will
remain that the first Greek Testament, since the
invention of printing, edited wholly on ancient author-
ity, irrespective of modern traditions, is due to Charles
Lachmann " (Tregelles).

He bestowed great pains in editing the Latin Ver- Great pains
sion of Jerome, which was added to his Greek text. ^If^^^'^ °''
His principal authorities were the Codex Fuldensis Latin
(sixth century), which he and Buttmann studied ^'"s^^^-

vv. of the Gospels. Q, Codex Guelpherbytanus II, fifth century,
palimpsest, Wolfenbuttel, 247 vv. of Luke and John. T, Codex
Borgianus I, fifth century, College of the Propaganda at Rome,
fragments of Luke and John, Greek text with Sahidic or The-
baic Version. Z, Codex Dublinensis, sixth century, palimp-
sest, Matthew. E2, Codex Laudianus, sixth century, Bodleian
Library, Oxford, Acts. G2, Acts, seventh century, St. Peters-
burg. H3, Codex Coislinianus, sixth century, fragments dis-
tributed in different libraries, Pauline Epistles.

114

TEXTUAL CBtTICISM

together at Fulda in 1839, and the Codex Amiatinus
(sixth century) of the Laurentian Library at Florence,
a description of which may be found in Scrivener's
Introduction, II, 71. Of this codex he had only an
imperfect collation. With these and some other aid
from manuscripts he revised the whole of Jerome's
Version. In his preface he gave some valuable matter
on the subject of the Latin texts. He held that the
Old Latin proceeded from Northern Africa, and that
its text had been modernised into a form resembling
the later Greek manuscripts.-^

1 The following table exhibits a few of Lachmann's readings,
compared with those of the Textus Receptus and Westcott and
Hort : —

Kec.

LacuN

W. 11.

Matt. 21 : 31 :

6 7rpa>TOS

6 vo-repos

6 vo-repos

Luke 2: 14:

evSoKia

evSoKiag

evSoKias

Luke T : 31 :

elne de 6 Kvptos

Omit

Omit

John 3 : 15 :

fj-T) ttTToArjTai aW

[ju.)j anoKyjTai aAA']

Omit

John 3 : 34 :

0e6s]

eK fxirpov Sifioa-

(TIV

John 6 : 22 :

eKeluo eig o evep-qaav
oi fiaOrjTal avToii

Omit

Omit

John 6 : 51 :

ffv eyit) Suiaoi

Omit

Omit

Acts 13 : 33 :

Tw Sei/Te'po)

T(jJ TrpuiTO)

TuJ Sevreptfi

Rom. 1 : 29 :

■nopveiq.

Omit

Omit

Kom. 5:1:

exofiev

e'xwp.e*' (mg)

fX^H^fv

Kom. 5:2:

Tjj nia-rei

[ ]

[ ]

Rom. 7 : 25 :

€VXapL<TTO>

X»pis

Xipis

1 Cor. 11 : 29 :

ava^iiti<;

Omit

Omit

Eph. 1:15:

Ttfv aYaTrT);/

Omit

Omit

Eph. 2 : 21 :

TTaaa 17 oi«oSojixrj

Omit r,

Omit Jj

Heb. 10 : 34 :

SecTfJiOii

6e<r/Atoi?

Seff/xioK;

Apoc. 18 : 3 :

neiTO)Ke

TreTTcoKai'

ninrixiKay

See Hort, Introduction to Westcott and Hort's Greek Testa-
mpnt, 13. Lachmann's Life, by Hertz, Berlin, 1851. Tischen-
dorf, Prolegomena, 193, 258-366. Tregelle.s, rdnted Text,
97-117. Scrivener, Introduction, II, 231-235. O. von Geb-
hardt, article " Bibeltext," in Ilerzog's Beal-Encijklopddie.

HAEN, THEILE, BLOOMFIELB, HORNE 115

The editions of Hahn (1840, 1861) and Theile (1844), Hahn,
based on the Textus Keceptus, but giving many read- BlSJmfield
ings from Griesbach, and some from Lachmann and
Tischendorf, did nothing to promote Textual Criti-
cism beyond giving wider currency to the new read-
ings. The successive editions of Dr. Samuel Thomas
Bloomfield, published in England and America (1832-
43), merely testify to the lack of the critical art at
that time and in those countries.^ Equally without
critical value as regarded text was the Introduction to Home's
the Critical Studi/ and Knowledge of the Holy Scrijytures, '^^Q^^fy^*^^^'
by Thomas Hartwell Home, which passed through nine

Tregelles's appreciation of Lachmann is very high, and his re-
marks concerning him are very interesting. Scrivener cannot
accord to him the praise of wisdom in his design, or of over-
much industry and care in the execution of it ; but styles him
a true scholar, both in spirit and accomplishments, and ascribes
to him the merit of restoring the Latin Versions to their proper
rank in the criticism of the New Testament. Tischendorf, in
his seventh edition, commented severely upon Lachmann's treat-
ment of many passages, claiming that he had not followed his
own principles. Dr. Gregory, in the Prolegomena to Tischen-
dorf s eighth edition, speaks of him generously and discrimi-
natingly.

1 Dr. Gregorj^ Prolegomena to Tischendorf, 267, gives a list
of manuscripts consulted by Bloomfield at Lambeth and in the
British Museum, and Scrivener notices him only in an index of
writers, owners, and collators. Tregelles (Printed Text, 262,
note) says: "Those who maintain the traditional text often
invent or dream their facts, and then draw their inferences.
I refer the reader to Dr. Bloomfield's Additional Annotations on
the Nexo Testament, who, as well as other writers devoted to
the advocacy of similar principles, habitually overlooks the real
facts in the statement of evidence ; and thus he accuses critics
of having made false allegations which really are not so, of in-
serting or cancelling readings which they have not inserted or
cancelled, and of being actuated by evil motives, such as no
one ought to think of imputing without sure knowledge and
definite proof."

116

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Doedes,
Reiche, de
Muralt.

Porter,
Norton.

editions in England, from 1818 to 1846, and was printed
three times in America, and commanded a wide influ-
ence.

In Holland, Jacob Isaac Doedes, in 1844, published
a Treatise on the Textual Criticism of the New Tes-
tament, in which he expressed the wish that the
Textus Keceptus might be set aside, and the text
printed of an ancient manuscript, as A, with various
readings from the oldest Greek codices. From George
Eeiche, Professor at Gottingen, came, in 1874, A
New Description of some notable Ncav Testament
manuscripts in the Paris Library, and a collation with
the Eeceived Text.^ The New Testament of Edward
de Muralt, " ad fidem codicis principis Vaticani,'' Ham-
burg, 1848, was valuable principally for its collations
of a few St. Petersburg codices. In England, John
Scott Porter, a pupil of Griesbach and Hug, in his
Principles of Textual Criticism, etc., 1848, and Samuel
Davidson, in his Treatise on Biblical Criticism, 1852,
gave some signs of a progress of the science. Good
critical work in the history and text of the Gospels
was done by Andrews Norton, Professor of Sacred Lit-
erature at Harvard Divinity School, in his Evidences
of the Genuineness of the Gospels, 2d ed., 1846.

1 Dr. Gregory characterises his work as "not luifmitful"
with respect to certain minuscules, but says that he represents
a backward tendency in criticism. Scrivener approvingly quotes
Canon Cook's voucher for him as " a critic remarkable for ex-
tent and accuracy of learning, and for soundness and sobriety
of judgment."

CHAPTER Xin

THE THIRD PERIOD (1830-^1). TISCHENDORF

An important era in the history of Textual Criti-
cism was marked by the labours of .-Enotheus (Gottlob)
Friedrich Constantine Tischendorf (1815-74). He
was appointed Professor of Theology at Leipzig in
1813. In 1810 he began a series of journeys for the
purpose of collecting and examining authorities for the
New Testament text. From Paris, where he prepared
for publication the text of Codex Ephraemi, he went to
England, Holland, and Italy, examining and collating
manuscripts in every great library. He was aided in
his journeys by the pecuniary support of the Saxon
and Russian governments. He aimed to become ac-
quainted with all the uncial manuscripts by personal
examination. His first journey to the East was made
in 1814, when he discovered at the Mount Sinai Con-
vent of St. Catherine forty-three leaves of Codex j< of
the LXX, which had been thrown by the monks into a
waste-basket to be used as fuel. These were published
in 1846, as the Codex Friderico Augustanus. His
third eastern excursion, in 1859, resulted in his dis-
covery of the remainder of the Sinaitic Codex, includ-
ing the entire New Testament. Having secured the
loan of the codex, it was carried to Cairo, where, with
the aid of two German scribes, he transcribed the
whole manuscript of 110,000 lines, and noted the
12,000 changes made by later hands. In September,
1849, he was allowed to take it to Europe for publica-
117

Tischendorf.
His series of
journeys.

Discovery of
Codex N of
LXX.

Discovery of
N of the New
Testament.

118 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

tion, and in 1862 it was issued in sumptuous style, in
four volumes, at the expense of Alexander II, Czar of
Russia. An edition containing only the New Testa-
ment appeared in the following year.^ This discovery
Value of N. -^as a most important contribution to the study of the
New Testament text. The date assigned by Tischen-
dorf to the codex, the middle of the fourth century, is
generally accepted. He thought it probable that it
was one of the fifty copies which Constantine ordered
to be prepared for the churches of Constantinople in
331, and that it was sent by the Emperor Justinian to
the Sinaitic Convent which had been founded by him.
Tischendorf declared that a thousand readings of the
codex, among them exceedingly remarkable and im-
portant ones, sustained by the oldest Fathers and Ver-
sions, are found in neither B nor A. The readings, in
many passages, agree with those of B, and Tischen-
dorf held that the hand of the same scribe was appar-
ent in portions of both, though conceding that the
origin of the two was not the same. It contains twelve
thousand corrections, made by the original scribes or

1 The story of the discovery of the Sinaitic Codex is told by
Tischendorf in Reise in den Orient, 1845-46, and most fully
in Die Sinaibibel, 1871. See also Wann wurden unsere Evan-
gelien verfasst ? " When were our Gospels written ? " Trans-
lation by the London Religious Tract Society, 1867. Also
Georg Ebers, Durch Gosen zuni Si7iai, 302-309, Leipzig, 1872.
The charge that the manuscript was stolen under pretext of
borrowing is false. It was formally presented to the Czar in
1869 by the authorities of the Mt. Sinai Convent. Dr. Philip
Schaff says that Tischendorf, in 1871, showed him two letters
from Kallistratos the Prior, in one of which he distinctly says
that the codex was a gift (Jdoop-qdr)) to the Russian emperor,
" as a testimony of eternal devotion." TJie Czar recognized the
gift by a liberal donation. See Schaff, Companion to the Greek
Testament and English Version, 3d ed.. Ill, and all the docu-
mentary evidence in Gregory's Prolegomena to Tischendorf,
350 f.

TISCHENDORF

119

by later writers running from the fourth to the seventh
century. It frequently agrees with the Old Latin.

The adherents of the Textus Receptus have en-
deavoured to belittle the importance and authority of
this codex as well as that of B. Notable among these
assailants was the late J. W. Burgon, Dean of Chi-
chester, an accomplished scholar but a bitter contro-
versialist. His views may be examined in The Last
Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to St. Mark
Vindicated, etc., London, 1871, and in The Revision
Revised, London, 1883. His style of handling the two
manuscripts may be seen from the following extracts,
taken from the latter work : " By far the most de-
praved text is that exhibited by Codex D. . . . Kext
to D, the most untrustworthy codex is ^5, which bears
on its front a memorable note of the evil repute under
which it has always laboured, viz. it is found that at
least ten revisers between the fourth and the twelfth
centuries busied themselves with the task of correct-
ing its many and extraordinary perversions of the
truth of Scripture. Next in impurity comes B." Re-
ferring to Bishop Ellicott's description of i^, B, A, and
C, the Dean says : " Could ingenuity have devised se-
verer satire than such a description of four profess-
ing transcripts of a book, and that book the everlasting

Gospel itself

Imagine it gravely proposed, by

the aid of four such conflicting documents, to readjust
the text of the funeral oration of Pericles, or to reedit
Hamlet. Risum teneatis aniici ? Why, some of the
poet's most familiar lines would cease to be recognisa-
ble, e.g. A, — ' Toby or not Toby, that is the question ' :
B, — ' Toby or not, is the question ' : S, — ' To be a tub
or not to be a tub, the question is that ' : C, — ' The
question is, to beat or not to beat Toby ? ' D (the ' sin-
gular codex'), — 'The only question is this, to beat
that Toby or to be a tub ? ' "

Attempts to
belittle its
importance
and author-
ity. Bur-
gon's attack.

120 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

" As for the origin of these two curiosities (^ and B),
it can perforce only be divined from their contents.
That they exhibit fabricated texts is demonstrable.
No amount of honest copying — persevered in for any
number of centuries — could by any possibility have
resulted in two such documents. Separated from one
another in actual date by fifty, perhaps by one hun-
dred years, they must needs have branched off from
a common corrupt ancestor, and straightway become
exposed continuously to fresh depraving influences.
The result is that Codex ^, which evidently has gone
through more adventures and fallen into worse com-
pany than his rival, has been corrupted to a far graver
extent than Codex B, and is even more untrustworthy."
" Lastly, we suspect that these two manuscripts are in-
debted for their preservation solely to their ascertained
evil character, which has occasioned that the one
eventually found its way, four centuries ago, to a for-
gotten shelf in the Vatican Library ; while the other,
after exercising the ingenuity of several generations
of critical correctors, eventually got deposited in the
waste-paper basket of the convent at the foot of Mt.
Sinai. Had B and J< been copies of average purity,
they must long since have shared the inevitable fate of
books which are freely used and highly prized, namely,
they would have fallen into decadence and disappeared
from sight. But in the meantime, behold, their very
antiquity has come to be reckoned to their advantage,
and (strange to relate) is even considered to constitute
a sufiB.cient reason why they should enjoy not merely
extraordinary consideration, but the actual surrender of
the critical judgment."
Replies to Burgon was answered by Dr. Ezra Abbot of Cam-

Burgoia. bridge, Mass., in the Journal of the American .Oriental
Society, 1872, X, 189-200, 602. Dr. Sand ay, in the Con-
temporary Review for December, 1881, declared that the

TISCHENDORF

121

Tischen-
dorf s edi-
tions of the

one tiling -which Burgou lacked was a grasp on the cen-
tral condition of the problem, and that he did not seem
to have the faintest glimmering of the principle of gene-
alogy. He was also dealt with by 0. von Gebhardt, in
the article " Bibeltext " in Herzog's Real-Encyklopddie.

In the same line with Burgon, but more moderate in
tone, was Canon F. C. Cook, Tlie Revised Version of
the First TJiree Gospels, London, 1882.^

Tischendorf's labours as editor, writer, and collator
were enormous. The catalogue of his published writ-
ings occupies fourteen pages of Gregory's Prolegomena.
One of his principal claims to the gratitude of textual
students is the number of texts of the leading uncials
which he edited.^ Between 1841 and 1873 he pub-
lished twenty-four editions of the Greek Testament,
if we include the reissues of his stereotyped Editio NewTesta-
Academica (1855). Of these, four were intended °^®°**
rather for common or academic use than for critical
purposes. The first edition of 1841 contained Pro-
legomena concerning Recensions, with special refer-
ence to the positions of Scholz, which he repudiated.
In this edition he followed, essentially, the principles
which he afterward maintained. In 1842 an edition
was issued at Paris in large 8vo, with a Latin version
according to ancient witnesses, and in the same year
an edition in 12mo, without the version and the criti-

1 The most elaborate discussion of the Sinaitic and Vatican
manuscripts is in Dr. Hort's Introduction to Westcott and Hort's
Greek Testament, 210-270. See also F. H. A. Scrivener, Colla-
tion of the Codex Sinaiticus, 3d ed., 1867, Tischendorf, Die
Anfechtungen der Sinaibibel, 1863. Id., Wafeyi der Finster-
niss icider die Sinaibibel, 186S. Id., Die Sinaibibel, ihre Ent-
deckitng, Herausgabe und Erwerbung, 1871. J. Rendel Harris,
New Testament Autographs, Baltimore. V. Gardthausen, Grie-
chische Palaeographie, 1879.

2 See the list in Gregory's Prolegomena, 7 fl., and compare
Scrivener's Introduction, II, 236 ff.

122 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

cal apparatus of the larger edition. Three editions
appeared in 1843, neither of which is specially sig-
nificant. His fifth or second Leipzig edition, 1849,
contained a revised text, with a selection of various
readings embodying the results of his own collations
since his first edition. " This edition may be called
epoch-making" (Bertheau). In this interval he had
copied or collated almost every known uncial. The
work also contained a statement of his critical princi-
ples. The seventh edition (Editio Septima Critica
Majo7\ 1859) was issued in thirteen parts at Leipzig.
Scrivener characterises this as " a monument of per-
severing industry which the world has not often seen
surpassed." The Prolegomena, partly from the edi-
tion of 1849, were greatly enlarged. In the first
volume of this edition he showed a leaning toward
the Textus Keceptus as represented by the cursives
and later uncials ; but in the second volume he re-
turned to the older uncial text. His crowning work,
The eighth the eighth edition (Editio Octava Critica Major), ap-
edufon peared in eleven parts, between 1864 and 1872. It

differed from that of 1859 in over three thousand
places, mostly in favour of the oldest uncial text.^

1 Dr. Scrivener uses this fact to the disparagement of Tischen-
dorf, remarking that it was ''to the scandal of the science of
comparative criticism, as well as to his own grave discredit for
discernment and consistency." On the other hand, 0. von Geb-
hardt, article "Bibeltext," Herzog's Recd-Eiicyklopadie^ regards
the fact as creditable to Tischendorf, showing his willingness to
learn from new sources of information. He says that the ex-
planation lies not only in the enrichment of his textual apparatus
through the discovery of the Sinaitic Codex, but before all, as
Tischendorf himself declared, in the emphasis on the objective
authority of the oldest witnesses, irrespective of consequences
to subjective considerations, —those founded, for instance, on
possibilities of erroneous transcription, or the apparent critical
or dogmatic leanings of copyists.

TISCHENBORF

123

Tischendorfs death in December, 1874, prevented
the preparation of the Prolegomena to the eighth edi-
tion. This was done by Dr. Caspar Rene Gregory,
assisted by Dr. Ezra Abbot, and was issued at Leipzig
in 1894. Dr. Abbot died before the work was com-
pleted. "Caelestibus adjunctus animis," writes Dr.
Gregory in his preface, " laude mea non eget."

Tischendorf started from Lachmann's principle,
that the text is to be sought in ancient evidence, and
especially in Greek manuscripts, but without neglect-
ing the testimonies of Versions and Fathers. " I have
learned," he said, " that the great profusion of various
readings which is commonly paraded in books is a
kind of splendid distress." Under the term, "most
ancient Greek Codices," he included documents from
the fourth to about the ninth century, classified ac-
cording to their age, the older being the more authori-
tative. Their authority is strongly confirmed by the
corroborating Versions and Fathers, and is not to be
rejected, even though most or all of the modern copies
read differently. His range was, accordingly, much
larger than Lachmann's, and the application of his
principle less rigid. While Lachmann aimed at at-
taining only the oldest text, Tischendorf sought for
the best text.

He treated the subject of recensions cautiously.
He held that revisions were made by Hesychius and
Lucian, but that the extent of the influence of these
revisions could not be shown. The so-called revision
of Origen existed, he declared, only in Hug's imagina-
tion. The documentary witnesses which have de-
scended to us may be thrown into certain classes,
especially in the Gospels, less in the Apocalypse than
in the other books, more in the Pauline Epistles and
Acts than in the Catholic Epistles. He recognised a
fourfold division in two pairs: Alexandrian and Latin,

The Prole-
gomena by
Gregory and
Abbot.

Tischen-
dorf s criti-
cal princi-
ples and
methods.

Classifica-
tion of
witnesses.

124 TEXTUAL CBITICISM

Asiatic and Byzantine. The Alexandrian was in use
among Eastern Jewish Christians, whose Greek, like
that of the Apostles, was moulded by that of the
Septuagint. The Latin was employed by Latins,
whether Latin or Greek-speaking. The Asiatic pre-
vailed among Greeks, whether in Asia or in their own
country. The Byzantine was that which was diffused
by the church throughout the Byzantine Empire, and
which gradually, with the closer union of individual
churches, acquired a kind of public unity. The Asi-
atic and Byzantine embraced the more recent docu-
ments ; the Alexandrian and Latin the more ancient.

The question of the origin of these classes is not
settled by the difference of the several countries
through which the text was propagated, since the
codices of one country were sometimes conveyed to
another; as when Eusebius of Caesarea and Athana-
sius of Alexandria were commanded by Constantine
and Constans to send to the Byzantines copies accu-
rately and elegantly transcribed. Along with the
difference of countries there must be taken into the
account the efforts made at a very early date to amend
the text. Such efforts, Tischendorf thought, grew out
of the want of reverence for " the written letter " on
the part of the early Christians. It is to be especially
observed that the Byzantine family is conspicuous in
the great body of more recent Greek codices, and the
Latin in the Latin and Groeco-Latin documents, though
with a great variety of readings. Of the Asiatic and
Alexandrian the fewest documents survive, and none
Caution de- are uncorrupted. Great caution should therefore be
a^f"^fn Th exercised in applying the distinction of classes or re-
distinction censions. To take this distinction as an absolute norm
of classes. ^^ foundation, is rash and futile. In assigning the
first place to the Alexandrian witnesses we reason less
from the theory of recensions than from the fact that

text.

TISCHENDORF 125

those codices which go under that name are almost the
oldest of all surviving witnesses.

Thus, according to Tischendorf, the value of any
codex is derived, not from its class, but from the good-
ness and antiquity of the text which the codex princi-
pally follows.^

Tischendorf laid down the following principles for Formal
the formation of his text, some of which had been, xSn-"^"^
substantially, propounded by Griesbach and others : — dorf s prin-

1. The text is only to be sought from ancient Ihefovm^-
evidence, and especially from Greek manuscripts, but tion of his
without neglecting the testimonies of Versions and
Fathers- Thus the whole conformation of the text

1 The uncial codices, arranged according to their value, are
the following : —

(A) Text of the most ancient form, for the most part with
an Alexandrian colouring, but with many variations.

{B) Text later in form, mostly with an Asiatic colouring.

Gospels

(A) Of the first rank : KABCDIIbLPQRT^b^XZA (espe-
cially in Mark) e^'^S.

Of the second rank: F^N 0 W^^c [W^e] y e^bef j-^].

(B) Of the first rank, nearer to A : E K M r A n 6^.

Of the second rank : F G H S U V.

When, as often occurs, EFGHKMSUV agree, they are desig-
nated by Tischendorf as unc^.

Acts and Catholic Epistles

(A) X A B C D I E G and P in CathoUc Epistles, except in 1
Pet.

(5) H K L [M], and P in Acts and 1 Pet.

Pauline Epistles

{A) XABCHIOQ[R]DFGM[Ot']P.
{B) KLN.

Apocaltpsb
(^) KACPB.

126

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

should proceed from evidences themselves, and not
from what is called the received edition. The sound-
ness of this rule, which embodies Lachmann's funda-
mental principle, is generally conceded. Its practical
working, however, strictly on Tischendorf's basis,
would be somewhat embarrassed by the wide range
which he gives to the term "Most Ancient Greek
Manuscripts " ; since, under that term, he includes the
documents from the fourth to about the ninth century.
Later documents of that period would be likely to
exhibit readings resembling those of modern copies.
Tischendorf, however, declares that, of the documents
from the fourth to the ninth century, the authority of
the older ones is much the greater, and is confirmed by
corroborating testimonies of Versions and Fathers, and
not to be rejected, even though most or all of the
more modern copies read differently.

2. A reading altogether peculiar to one or another an-
cient document is suspicious, as also is any, even if sup-
ported by a class of documents which seems to show
that it has originated in the revision of a learned man.
He says that especially in the Gospels, where we have
several uncial manuscripts, it would be incautious to
receive a reading into the text on the authority of one
manuscript, unless the reading were in some measure
corroborated. On this Tregelles justly remarks that
^'it seems unlikely that, in the Gospels, it would be
needful to rely on but one manuscript, unless, in such
a place, many of the leading authorities are defec-
tive, or unless the passage present a remarkable dis-
crepancy of reading. Tischendorf would apparently
introduce this latter limitation." An example is
furnished in Mark 2 : 22, where Tischendorf reads
6 oti/o? aTToXXvTat kol ol daKoc, "the wine perislieth and
the skins," for the received reading, 6 oTvoq cKXfirat koI
ot aa-Kol airokovvTaLf " the wine is spilled and the skins

TISCHENDOBF 127

perish." The former reading rests on the authority
of B; but Tischendorf woukl refuse to adopt it on
that authority alone. It is also the reading of the
Memphitic Version, and added to these witnesses is
the probability that it was altered in order to conform
it to the reading of Matt. 9 : 17. That, originally,
the passage in Mark was written differently from that
in Matthew, in accordance with the difference between
Matthew's fuller and Mark's briefer diction, would
seem to be shown by the differences in reading of the
passage in Mark. L reads 6 olvos iK^^urat Kal ol aa-Kol :
D with It.**, 6 otvos Kal aa-Kol d-rroXovvTaL. Thus, Tischen-
dorf refuses to accept his reading on the authority of
B alone, but accepts it because B is confirmed by a
Version, and by the evidence of transcriptional proba-
bility.

3. Readings, however well supported by evidence. Copyists'
are to be reiected when it appears that they have errors to be

J J n n -Irri, -^ rejected de-

proceeded irom errors oi copyists. Here, however, it spite sup-
is to be carefully considered whether an apparent P^^^*
transcriptional error is not set aside by the weight of
diplomatic evidence. Thus, Tischendorf holds that
the reading in Matt. 25 : 16 should be iTroL-qa-ev
"made," instead of lidp^-qa-ev "gained"; but both
Tregelles and Westcott and Hort retain iKepS-qa-ev on
the ground that it is sustained by the best and most
ancient manuscripts ; and Tischendorf himself admits
that it is often doubtful whether an apparent tran-
scriptional error is really such.

4. In parallel passages, whether of the New or Old In parallel
Testament, especially in the synoptical Gospels, those unifjmnon-
testimonies are to be preferred in which there is not |sed read-
precise accordance of such parallel passages, unless Lbfe.^^^ ^^"
there are important reasons to the contrary. The
tendency of copyists to bring the parallel passages of
different Gospels into accord has already been noticed.

128 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

It "was no doubt fostered by the use of Harmonies,
such as Tatian's.

5. In discrepant readings, that reading should be
preferred which may have given occasion to the rest,
or which appears to comprise the elements of the
others. The principle is sound, but its application is
not easy in all cases, and is likely to depend upon the
feeling of the individual critic. The same considera-
tion will come into play as in Rule 3, viz. whether
the apparent probability is not offset or overborne by
external testimony.

6. Those readings must be maintained which accord
with New Testament Greek, or with the peculiar style

to be chosen, of each individual writer. This may be admitted so
far as concerns the peculiar style of each writer ; but
the rule was evidently framed on the assumption
that Biblical Greek was an independent language,
an assumption which is strongly challenged by some
modern New Testament scholars. Until that discus-
sion is settled, it is premature to pronounce upon the
validity of Tischendorf's rule.'

The question of the original New Testament text,
and that of the methods by which it is to be finally
determined, are both too far from absolute settlement
to warrant a final judgment as to the relative value of
Tischendorf's results. He himself incurred the charge
of vacillation because he was open-eyed to all new
forms of evidence, and ready to modify or to abandon
former conclusions under the influence of new light.

1 See H. A. A. Kennedy, Sources of Neio Testament Greeks
Edinburgh, 1895. G. A. Deissmann, Die sprachliche Erforschung
der griechischen Bibel, ihr gegenwdrtiger Stand und ihre Aufga-
ben, Giessen, 1898. Id., Beitrdge zur Sprachgeschichte der
griechischen Bibel, in Bibelstudien, Marburg, 1895. Id.,
Neue Bibelstudien. Sprachgeschichtliche Beitrdge, zumeist aus
den Papyri und Inschriften, zur Erkldrung des Neuen Testa-
ments, Marburg, 1897.

TISCHENBOBF 129

The real value of Codex J< and his enthusiastic delight
in its discovery may have led him sometimes to attach
undue weight to its testimony. In any case, he gave
a vast and permanent impulse to the science of textual
criticism, and advanced it far beyond the lines which
it had previously reached. He did not solve the
problem presented by variations between the most
ancient texts, but his accumulations of new manu-
script evidence, from personal inspection, were enor-
mous. His collations were generally accurate, and his
publications of the texts of the chief ancient witnesses
were invaluable. He was a formidable champion of
the principle that the original text is to be determined
primarily on the basis of ancient testimony. Until
some new and greater textual prophet shall arise, he
will continue to divide the honors with Tregelles and
Westcott and Hort, neither of whom have rendered his
published results unnecessary ; and over a large area
of the New Testament text the conclusions of these
leaders coincide.^

1 See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 3-6, 7-22, 193-197. Scrive-
ner, Introduction, I, 115-117, 122, 155 f., 159, 163; II, 235-
238, 282 ; also I, Index II. P. Schaff, Companion to the Greek
Testament and English Version, 3d ed., 103-111, 257-262.
Tregelles, Printed Text, 116-129. 0. von Gebhardt, article
"Bibeltext," in Herzog's Real-Encyklopddie. J. E. Volbed-
ing, Constantine Tischendorf in seiner funfundzwanzigjdhri-
gen schriftstellerischen Wirksamkeit, Leipzig, 1862. Ezra
Abbot, Unitarian Review, March, 1875. Carl Bertheau, article
*' Tischendorf," in Herzog's Beal-Encyklopddie.

K

CHAPTER XIV

THIRD PERIOD (1830-81). TREGELLES

Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, who ranks as one
of the three great modern authorities on the New
Testament text, was born and died at nearly the same
times as Tischendorf. His Prospectus of a Critical
Edition of the Greek New Testament, now in prejmra-
tion, was appended to his Book of Revelation Trans-
lated from the Ancient Greek Text, 1844. In 1845
he went to Rome, with the special object of collating
the Codex Vaticanus. This document had been already-
collated for Bentley by Mico (1799), partially by Birch,
and also by Bartolocci (1669). Bartolocci's collation
was not published. Tregelles had compared the two
others, and had found that they differed in nearly two
thousand places, and that many of the discrepancies
were readings noticed by one and not by the other.
He went to Rome, and during the five months of his
Fruitless at- stay endeavoured to obtain permission to collate the
collate B. manuscript accurately, or at least to examine it in
the places where Birch and Bentley differed as to the
readings; but all his efforts were in vain. He often
saw the manuscript, but was hindered from transcribing
any of its readings. He, however, read many passages,
and afterward noted down several important readings.
During that visit, however, and two subsequent ones
to the Continent, he examined all the manuscripts that
he could find in different libraries, at Florence, Modena,
Venice, Munich, Basle, Paris (where he transcribed
Bartolocci's collation of B), Hamburg, Berlin, Leipzig,
130

TREGELLES 131

and Dresden. In 1854 appeared his Account of the Account 0/
Printed Text of the New Testament, intended as an tLl^'^^^^^
exposition of his critical principles ; and in 1856 his Introduc-
Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testa- Textual Cn-
ment, contributed to the tenth edition of Home's t{cism of
Introduction. In 1857 the first part of his Greek Testament.
Testament, containing the Gospels of Matthew and His Greek
Mark, was published, under the title, TJie Greek Testament.
Testament edited from Ancient Authorities, with the
Latin Version of Jerome from the Codex Amiatinus.
The second part, containing the Gospels of Luke and
John, followed in 1861, the Acts and Catholic Epistles
appeared in 1865, and the Pauline Epistles, down to
2 Thessalonians, in 1869. He was disabled by a para-
lytic stroke in 1870 ; but the remaining Epistles were
published in that year as he had prepared them. The
Apocalypse, edited so far as possible, from his papers,
by two of his friends, was issued in 1872, with a text
differing in over two hundred places from his edition
of 1814.

His New Testament contained a large array of
Greek and Syriac readings, mostly the results of his
own collations; besides readings of the Egyptian,
Ethiopic, and Armenian Versions, of the Greek
Fathers down to Eusebius, and of the Latin Fathers,
Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilary, Lucifer of Cagliari, and
Primasius. The Gospels were edited before the dis-
covery of the Sinaitic Codex, and before Tischendorf's
later studies on B. The lack of these two sources was
the cause of many of his disagreements with Tischen-
dorf's readings.^

Tregelles's collations of manuscripts were very ex-
tensive, and he devoted great attention to the Fathers.

1 Gregory's Prolegomena to Tischendorf, 287-334, gives a
collation of the texts of Tregelles and Westcott and Hort, with
that of Tischendorf's eighth Critica Major.

132

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Founder of
"Compara-
tive Criti-
cism."

Critical
principles.

His critical work was distinguished by scrupulous
exactness. Scrivener says that where Tischendorf
and Tregelles diifer in their collations, Tregelles is
seldom in the wrong. In many cases he compared
his own collations with Tischendorf s and settled the
differences by a reexamination of the manuscript.

Tregelles introduced the method which he styled
"Comparative Criticism," that is, the process which
seeks to determine the comparative value and to trace
the mutual relations of authorities of every kind upon
which the original text of the New Testament is based.
He ignored the Received Text and most of the cur-
sives, and based his text on the oldest uncials, the
Versions down to the seventh century, and the early
Fathers. His range of ancient authorities was larger
than Lachmann's. He denied that exactly defined
families of documents could be distinguished, while
admitting that two general classes of texts might be
recognised, — Alexandrian and Constantinopolitan, —
although some codices might occasionally be distin-
guished from the Alexandrian as " Western."

His critical principles are stated at length in his
" Printed Text." He lays down the following state-
ments: Readings whose antiquity is proved apart
from manuscripts are found in repeated instances in
a few of the extant copies. These few, the text of
which is thus proved to be ancient, include some, and
often several, of the oldest manuscripts extant. In
some cases the attested ancient reading is found in
but one or two manuscripts, but those of the most an-
cient class. And, as certain manuscripts are found,
by a process of inductive proof, to contain an ancient
text, their character as witnesses must be considered
to be so established that, in other places, their testi-
mony deserves peculiar weight. As to Versions, the
concurrence of two Versions in a definite reading ex-

TREGELLES 1S3

eludes the supposition that the reading is merely an
accident of transcription or translation ; and that the
accordance with them of certain manuscripts is like-
wise the result of fortuitous circumstances or of arbi-
trary alteration. When the number of according
Versions is multiplied, the balance of probabilities is
highly convincing. As to patristic citations, although
often modernised to suit the Greek text to which a
copyist was accustomed, yet when the reading is such
that it could not be altered without changing the
whole texture of their remarks, or when they are so
express in their testimony that such a reading is that
found in such a place, we need not doubt that it was
so in their copies; and so, too, if we find that the
reading of early Fathers agrees with other early
testimonies in opposition to those which are later.

The antiquity of documents is to be preferred to Insists on
their number as a basis of testimony. The only proof testhnony.
that a reading is ancient is that it is found in some
ancient document. The selection of authorities must
be based upon proof that the witnesses are worthy of
confidence. Ancient manuscripts, the older Versions,
and such early citations as have come down to us in a
trustworthy form, are the only certain vouchers that
any reading is ancient. Besides the manuscripts which
are actually the oldest, we may use as valuable auxilia-
ries those whose general text accords with them, be-
cause the character of such manuscripts is shown by
their general agreement with the oldest, and because
it is also proved by the same criteria of accordance
with the best early Versions and citations. It cannot
be objected that we do not know by whom the ancient
copies were written. This would apply equally to a
vast number of the modern codices. The so-called
uniform text of the later manuscripts is not an evi-
dence in its favour, and does not show that the variar

134 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

tions of the oldest manuscripts from one another and
from the more recent prove the oldest to be unreliable.
The later Greek manuscripts are not so uniform in
their text as are the later Latin ; yet the recent manu-
scripts of the Vulgate agree in perhaps two thousand
readings, differing from what Jerome could have given,
and also from the very few ancient copies which have
been transmitted. Thus the Latin manuscripts supply
an argument from analogy. The mass of recent copies
contain a text notoriously and demonstrably incorrect ;
the few oldest manuscripts supply the means of emen-
dation, and these few must be followed if we think of
giving the genuine text of Jerome's Version. Besides
all this, it is not strictly true that these more modern
copies contain a uniform text. The difficulty of advo-
cating the mass of modern copies is great, not only
because of their internal variations, but also because
the witnesses stand opposed to every one of the most
ancient copies, to the ancient Versions as a class, and
to every Christian writer of the first three centuries of
whom we have any considerable remains.
Proposals in In his New Testament Tregelles proposes : (1) To
Testament, gi^© ^^^ ^^^^ <^^ t^® authority of the oldest manuscripts
and Versions, and with the aid of the earlier citations,
so as to present, as far as possible, the text commonly
received in the fourth century, always stating what
authorities support, and what oppose, the text given.
(2) In cases in which we have certain proofs which
carry us still nearer to the apostolic age, to use the
data so afforded. (3) In cases in which the oldest docu-
ments agree in certain undoubted transcriptional error,
to state the reading so supported, but not to follow it,
and to give the grounds on which another reading is
preferred. (4) In matters altogether doubtful, to state
distinctly the conflicting evidence, and thus to approxi-
mate toward a true text. (5) To give the various read-

TREGELLES

135

andTischen-
dorf com-
pared.

ings of all the uncial manuscripts and ancient Versions
very correctly, so that it may be clearly seen what
readings possess any ancient authority whatever. To
these add the more important citations of the earlier
writers to Eusebius inclusive. The places are also to
be indicated in which the common text departs from
the ancient readings.

As compared with Tischendorf, Tregelles was more Tregelles
accurate in the use of his material, without being pos-
sessed of Tischendorf's resources. He was less rest-
less than Tischendorf, and slower in making public the
results of his labours, so that the different portions of
his work do not exhibit the same changes of opinion
which characterise Tischendorf. Both added im-
mensely to the accumulations of evidence.

In the inspection of Codex Basilianus in the Vatican
(B of the Apocalypse), one of the three ancient copies
which contain that book, he satisfied himself that the
manuscript contained it entire, it having been pre-
viously supposed, owing to imperfect collation, that it
had many gaps. At Florence, he collated the New
Testament portion of the Codex Amiatinus, a most im-
portant manuscript of the Latin translation of Jerome,
belonging to the sixth century. The previous partial
collation by Fleck was defective and inaccurate. At
Modena he made what was virtually the first collation
of Codex Mutinensis of the Acts (ninth century). He
was the first to collate Codex Nanii, V of the Gospels
(tenth century), in the library of St. Mark at Venice.
At Munich he collated Codex Monacensis, X of the
Gospels (tenth century). This is an uncial manuscript
with ancient readings, but with a commentary in cur-
sive characters interspersed. Its collation was, in
parts, exceedingly difficult, owing to the fading of the
ink, and the difficulty was aggravated by Tregelles's
bad eyes. The order of the Gospels is the reverse of

Tregelles's
labours in
collation.

136 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

tliat in our Bibles, but before the beginning of John
were two injured leaves, apparently overlooked by
Tischendorf, and containing fragments of Matt. 6 :
3-10. The important Codex Colbertinus, known as
the Queen of the Cursives, and containing the Gospels,
Acts, Catholic Epistles and Epistles of Paul, had been
collated imperfectly by Larroque and Griesbach, and
possibly by Scholz. It was reserved for Tregelles to
do the work faithfully. He says, " I have had some
experience in the collation of manuscripts, but none
has ever been so wearisome to my eyes, and exhaustive
of every faculty of attention, as this was." The leaves
had been injured by damp, so that a part of the vellum
was utterly destroyed. In the book of Acts the leaves
were so firmly stuck together that, when they were
separated, the ink adhered rather to the opposite page
than to its own, so that, in many leaves, the manu-
script could only be read by observing how the ink had
set off, and thus reading the Greek words backward.
He collated, in all, twenty -nine codices, besides editing
Codex Zacynthius, H, of Luke (eighth century), and 0,
a fragment of eight leaves (ninth century), containing
about thirteen verses of the Gospel of John. The
eight leaves of this manuscript were used for binding
a copy of Chrysostom's Homilies which was brought
from Mt. Athos to Moscow, where the leaves were dis-
covered by Matthaei.
Von Geb- Of Tischendorf and Tregelles, Dr. 0. von Gebhardt

xtsdiendorf ^^^^ ' " -^0^^^ were in like measure equipped with the
and Trd- requisite qualities, — sharp-sightedness and an accuracy
^® ®^' that gave heed to the smallest particulars, and both,

with their whole soul, fixed their eyes upon the goal
set before them, and strove with like zeal to reach it.
That it was not their lot to attain equal success, lay in
the fact that Tischendorf was much more enterprising,
more keen-eyed for new discoveries, and far better

TREGELLES 137

favoured by fortune. But the success whicli each of
them reached, at the same time, is so great that they
leave far behind them everything that had been hitherto
done in this realm. In the toilsome work of collating
manuscripts and deciphering palimpsests, both Tischen-
dorf and Tregelles spent many years of their lives, being
thoroughly persuaded that the restoration of the New
Testament text could be striven for with success only
upon the basis of a diplomatically accurate investiga-
tion of the oldest documents. But while it was Tisch-
endorf's peculiarity to publish in rapid succession the
swiftly ripened fruits of his restless activity, and so to
permit liis last result to come into existence, so to
speak, before the eyes of the public, Tregelles loved
to fix his full energy undisturbed upon the attainment
of the one great aim, and to come into publicity only
with the completest which he had to offer. So we see
Tischendorf editing the New Testament twenty times
within the space of thirty years, not to mention his
other numerous publications, while Tregelles did not
believe that he could venture on the publication of the
only edition of the New Testament which we possess
from him, until after twenty years' preparation." ^

Even Burgon, the bitter enemy of the principles of Testimony
Tischendorf and Tregelles, says : " It is certain that by "^^ ^^i^gon.
the conscientious diligence with which those distin-
guished scholars have respectively laboured, they have
erected monuments of their learning and ability which
will endure forever. Their editions of the New Testa-
ment will not be superseded by any new discoveries, by
any future advances in the science of textual criticism.
The manuscripts which they have edited will remain
among the most precious materials for future study." ^

1 Article "Bibeltext," in Herzog's Real-Encyklopddie.

2 The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel according to St. Mark,

138

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Alford's

Greek

Testament.

Protests
against rev-
erence for
the Textus
Receptus.

Alford. — Henry Alf ord, Dean of Canterbury, issued
the first volume of his Greek Testament in 1849. The
fourth and final volume appeared in January, 1861.
The several volumes passed through numerous edi-
tions. Seven of the first two volumes, and five of the
third and fourth, were published. In the fifth edition
he nearly rewrote the text and digest of readings,
chiefly on the basis of the labours of Tischendorf and
Tregelles. In the sixth he incorporated the readings
of the Codex Sinaiticus. He added another protest
against the irrational reverence for the Textus Ee-
ceptus as standing in the way of all chance of dis-
covering "the genuine word of God," and advocated a
return to the evidence of the most ancient witnesses
as against the imposing array of later manuscripts.
He says : " Experience has brought about some changes
in my convictions with regard to the application of
canons of subjective criticism to the consensus of
ancient manuscripts. In proportion as I have been
led severely to examine how far we can safely depend
on such subjective considerations, I confess that the
limits of their applicability have become narrowed.
In very many cases they may be made to tell with
equal force either way." He drew his apparatus
mostly from the works of others, but himself com-
pared B in selected passages, and contributed some
new readings from other sources. His text appears
to be nearer to that of Tregelles than to that of
Tischendorf.

Preface, viii, ix. See Tischendorf, Prolegomena, 269-272. Tre-
gelles, Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament.
Carl Bertheau, article "Tregelles," in Herzog's Beal-Encyklo-
pdclie. O. von Gebhardt, article " Bibeltext," in Herzog's Beat-
Encyklopddie. Scrivener, Introduction, II, 238-241. F. J. A.
Hort, Journal of Philology, March, 1858. T. H. Home, Intro-
duction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scrip-
tures, 10th ed., IV, 1866; 11th ed., 1863.

CHAPTEE XV

THIRD PERIOD (1830-81). REACTION TOWARD THE
TEXTUS RECEPTUS. SCRIVENER AND BURGON

Under the influence of Tregelles, many English
scholars returned to the principles of Bentley. Dr.
Gregory naively remarks, at this point, "Non tamen
desunt viri docti quibus hsec novitas vix placeat."
Tregelles himself feelingly alludes to this. "It is
to be lamented that the feeling thus exists, even on
the part of some scholars, that recurrence to the most
ancient sources for the text of Scripture deserves to be
so condemned and deprecated that they hold up critics
(conscientious men it may be) who press the impor-
tance of ancient testimony, as reckless innovators, and
they thus lead an unjudging crowd to condemn them
and their labours." Tregelles found himself in conflict
with the leading representative of the conservative
school of Textual Criticism in England, Dr. Frederick Dr. Scrive-
Henry Ambrose Scrivener, Prebendary of Exeter and orthlcon-
Vicar of Hendon. Dr. Scrivener's attitude is set forth servatiye
in his own words in the second edition of his Intro- in England.
duction, repeated in the fourth and last edition.
" All that can be inferred from searching into the
history of the sacred text amounts to no more than
this : that extensive variations, arising no doubt from
the wide circulation of the New Testament in different
regions and among nations of diverse languages, sub-
sisted from the earliest period to which our records
extend. Beyond this point our investigations cannot
139

140 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

be carried without indulging in pleasant speculations,
which may amuse the fancy but cannot inform the
sober judgment."

Dr. Scrivener, in 1860, edited Stephen's text of
1550, adding the readings of the Elzevirs, Beza, Lach-
mann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles. Six editions are
noted by Dr. Gregory, the latest in 1877. In 1881
appeared The New Testainent in the Original Greek
according to the Text followed in the Authorised Ver-
sion {T. R. Beza, 1598), together ivith the Variations
adopted in the Revised Version. An appendix gives
a list of the passages in which the Authorised Version
departs from Beza's text and agrees with certain
earlier editions of the Greek Testament. An impor-
tant contribution to the study of Textual Criticism
was his Plaiyi Introduction to the Criticism of the
New Testament, 1861. The fourth edition, revised,
and enlarged to two volumes, a]Dpeared in 1894, edited
by the Eev. Edward Miller, an earnest supporter of
the conservative school. The list of manuscripts has
been increased to 3791, and most of the accounts of
ancient Versions have been rewritten by eminent spe-
cialists. Notwithstanding its extremely conservative
character, the work is valuable. Dr. Scrivener was
possessed of large learning on textual questions, but
fought every inch of the ground yielded by the Re-
ceived Text. His experience led him gradually to
modify his views on some points, and to make some
concessions. At the time of his death he was moving
in the direction of the substitution of the older, uncial
text for that of the Textus Receptus. He gave up
1 John 5:7, 8, and decided for o? against 6e.o^ in
1 Timothy 3 : 16. The movement, however, was slow
and hesitating. In his last edition of Stephen's text
(1887) he characterised Westcott and Hort's edition
as "splendidum peccatum, non Kr^/xa cs act."

SCRIVENER AND BURGON 141

With Dean Burgon he stood for the position that
all available authorities, and not the most ancient
only, should be considered in the settlement of the
text, and earnestly combated the tendency to rely too
exclusively on the testimony of i< and B. He was,
however, more moderate than Burgon, who pronounced Opinion of
^< and B to be the most corrupt of manuscripts, o ®^ °.
Scrivener says : " We accord to Codex B at least as
much weight as to any single document in existence ; "
and again, " We have no wish to dissemble the great
value of the Codex Vaticanus, which, in common with
our opponents, we regard as the most weighty single
authority that we possess." He also differed with
Burgon on 1 Tim. 3 : 16. In the last edition of the
Introduction his discussion of principles is summed
up in four practical rules : (1) That the true readings Critical
of the Greek New Testament cannot safely be derived ^^j^m^d up.
from any one set of authorities, whether manuscripts.
Versions, or Fathers, but ought to be the result of a
patient comparison and careful estimate of the evi-
dence supplied by them all. (2) That where there is
a real agreement between all documents containing the
Gospels up to the sixth century, and in the other parts
of the New Testament up to the ninth, the testimony
of later manuscripts and Versions, though not to be
rejected unheard, must be regarded with great suspi-
cion, and unless upheld by strong internal evidence,
can hardly be adopted. (3) That where the more
ancient documents are at variance with each other,
the later uncial and cursive copies, especially those of
approved merit, are of real importance as being the
surviving representatives of other codices, very prob-
ably as early, perhaps even earlier, than any now
extant. (4) That in weighing conflicting evidence we
must assign the highest value, not to those readings
which are attested by the greatest number of wit-

142

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

nesses, but to those which come to us from several
remote and independent sources, and which bear the
least likeness to each other in respect to genius and
general character.

He admits that the principle of grouping is sound,
but with certain reservations. A full statement of his
opinions on the late views of comparative criticism is
given in the Introduction, II, X.

Burgon. — John W. Burgon, Dean of Chichester, was
the friend and coadjutor of Scrivener. He is known
principally by his elaborate defence of the authenticity
of the last twelve verses of Mark's Gospel, and by his
savage attack on the Revised Version. He was a
learned scholar and an acute critic, and did much work
in inspecting and collating manuscripts, especially cur-
sives, in France and Italy. Much of his work was pub-
lished in The Guardian, and is not easily accessible.
" Burgon's work is dominated by the conviction that
every word of the Scriptures was dictated by the in-
spiration of the Holy Spirit ; that it is inconceivable
that the Author of such a gift would allow it to become
unavailing, and would not providentially interfere to
guard it from being corrupted or lost ; that we may
therefore rightly believe that He guided His church
through the course of ages to eliminate the errors
which the frailty of man had introduced, and conse-
quently that the text which has been used by the
church for centuries must be accepted as at least sub-
stantially correct." ^ Testing the value of the ancient
manuscripts by comparison with the Textus Receptus,
he stated his conclusion as follows : " By far the most
depraved text is that exhibited by Codex D ; next to
D the most untrustworthy codex is i< ; next in impur-
ity comes B ; then the fragmentary Codex C ; our own

1 Dr. Salmon, Some Thoughts on the Textual Criticism of
$he New Testament.

SCRIVENER AND BURGON 143

A being beyond all doubt disfigured by the fewest
blemishes of any." According 'o Burgon, the antiq-
uity of the most ancient manuscripts is due to their
badness. They were known to be so bad that they
were little used, and consequently remained untouched,
and therefore have survived when better manuscripts
have perished.^

Green, Kelly, McClellan, Abbot, Ward, Tyler. —
Thomas Sheldon Green, of Cambridge, is known by Thomas
A Course of Developed Criticism on Passages of the New Qreen^^
Testament, materially affected by Various Readings, Lon-
don, 1856 ; The Twofold New Testament, being a New
Translation accompanying a newly formed Text, London,
1865 ; A Critical Appendix to the Twofold New Testa-
ment, London, 1871. His text was based on ancient
witnesses, and agreed, mainly, with Tregelles and
Tischendorf. The text of the Apocalypse was edited
by William Kelly, The Revelation of John edited in William
Greek ivith a New English Version and a Statement of j^^J^b^^
the Cliief Authorities and Various Readings, London, McClellan.
1860. John Brown McClellan published The Neiv Tes-
tament ... a New Translation . . . from a critically
revised Greek Text . . . Harmony of the Four Gospels,
Notes, and Dissertations. Only the first volume, contain-
ing the Four Gospels, appeared (London, 1875). Like
Burgon, he condemned X and B as the worst codices,
and regarded internal probability as the surest guide
in distinguishing between disputed readings.

The lamented Ezra Abbot, from the year 1856, de-
voted himself to the New Testament text, though he
made no attempt to edit a text. The results of his
studies appeared in numerous articles and pamphlets,
a list of which may be found in Gregory's Prolegomena,

1 Many interesting particulars concerning Burgon will be
found in Dr. Schaff' s Companion to the Greek Testament and
English Version, 3d ed., 84, 108, 119 ff., 191, 293 ff., 37^^, 426, 491.

144 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

276. Also in the volume Anglo-American Bible Revi-
sion, New York, 1879, 86-98, in 21ie New Revision and
its Study, Philadelphia, 1881, reprinted in part in B.
H. Kennedy's Ely Lectures on the Revised Version of
the New Testament, London, 1882, and in the American
edition of Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, 1866-70.
He was one of the American committee on the Revised
Version, and was associated with Dr. C. E. Gregory in
the preparation of the Prolegomena of Tischendorf's
eighth edition. Mention should also be made of the
W.H.Ward, treatise of Dr. William Hayes Ward of New York,
A. W. Tyler. Examination of the Various Readings of 1 Timothy 3 :
16, Bibliotheca Sacra, Andover, 1865, and of two Dis-
sertations by A. Wellington Tyler, Our Lord^s Sacer-
dotal Prayer, John 17, a New Critical Text, etc., and
PauVs Panegyric of Love, a New Critical Text, etc.,
Bibliotheca Sacra, 1871, 1873 ; also a Critical Appara-
tus to 1 Cor. 12 : 27 — 13 : 13, in which the Patristic wit-
nesses are carefully collected.

CHAPTER XVI

THIRD PERIOD (1830-81). WESTCOTT AND HORT,
AND THE REVISERS' TEXT OF 1881

In 1881 appeared The Neio Testament in the Origi- Westcott
nal Greek, two volumes, Cambridge and London, by New^?s\'a-
Brooke Foss Westcott, D.D., Canon of Peterborough ment.
and Eegius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and
now Bishop of Durham, and Fenton John Anthony
Hort, D.D., Hulsean Professor of Divinity at Cam-
bridge. The first volume contained the text, and the
second the exposition of the textual principles and
methods of the editors, with notes on select readings,
orthography, and Old Testament quotations.

This work was announced as an attempt to present
exactly the original words of the Xew Testament, so
far as they can now be determined from surviving docu-
ments, by the application of criticism in distinguishing
and setting aside those readings which have originated
at some link in the chain of transmission. The editors
made no attempt to amass new material, but chose to
rely upon the stores accumulated by their predecessors,
confining themselves to the work of investigating and
editing the text itself. Their fresh evidence was
chiefly patristic, derived in a great measure from writ-
ings or fragments of writings first published during the
last hundred years, or now edited from better manu-
scripts than were formerly known.

Their textual principles were elaborated in their The Intro-
Introduction, prepared by Dr. Hort, a technical work ^^'^^^o^-
L 145

146

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

of enormous labour. To this the reader must be re-
ferred, since it is impossible adequately to exhibit its
contents in a condensed statement.

The aim, then, of Westcott and Hort, like that of
Tischendorf and Tregelles, is to make the closest ap-
proximation to the apostolic text itself, thus placing
their objective point back of Lachmann's, which was
the text of the fourth century. The facts of textual
history, they assert, as attested by Versions and patris-
tic quotations, show that it is no longer possible to
speak of " the text of the fourth century," since most
of the important variations were in existence before
the middle of the fourth century, and many can be
traced back to the second. "Thus the text of this
edition, in that larger sense of the word ' text ' which
includes the margin, rests exclusively on direct ancient
authority, and its primary text rests exclusively on
direct ancient authority of the highest kind."

The proper method of textual genealogy consists in
the more or less complete recovery of the texts of suc-
cessive ancestors by analysis and comparison of the
varying texts of their respective descendants, each
ancestral text so recovered being in its turn used, in
conjunction with other similar texts, for the recovery
of a text of a yet earlier common ancestor.

The object, in brief, is, instead of simply estimating
authorities in the order of their age, to arrange them
into groups which have descended from common an-
cestors, and determine the age and character of each
group. All the documents representing a text are
examined with a view to tracing out the resemblances
between them, and so classifying them in groups,
larger or smaller, according to likeness. This process
grows out of the principle that identity of reading im-
plies identity of origin. Though it is possible that
identity of readiug may arise from accidental coin-

WE8TC0TT AND HORT

147

cidence, yet the chances in favour of that possibility
are relatively small, and diminish with the increase of
the number of texts which agree in the reading. The
great bulk of identities of reading may be taken as
certain evidence of a common origin. In other words,
classification of documents according to their resem-
blance is a classification of them according to origin.
This community of origin may be either complete,
that is, due to a common ancestry for their whole
texts, or partial, that is, due to mixture.

This factor of mixture greatly complicates the pro-
cess. If each document were derived simply from a
single previous document, all the documents, each with
its single parent, would fall into a simple genealogy.
But a text may be mixed, that is, it may not have
been copied from a single exemplar, but from two or
more of different types, the copyist selecting the read-
ing now of one and now of another, or combining the
readings by mere addition, or by fusing them, thus
making what are termed " conflate " readings. Or
again, a copyist might have been familiar with a docu-
ment of a different type from that from which he was
copying, and might have introduced its readings, from
memory, into his own copy. Or he might have intro-
duced into the text of his copy corrections from other
codices which he found in the margin of his exemplar.
The result would be a mixed text, which would con-
fuse genealogy.

Dr. Hort distinguishes four types of text in the sur-
viving documents : 1. Western. This appears to have
originated in Syria or Asia Minor, and to have been
carried thence to Rome and Africa, and also to have
passed through Palestine and Egypt into Ethiopia. It
is represented especially by D (Gospels and Acts), and
D;, (Pauline Epistles), the Old Latin Versions, and the
Greek copies on which they were based, and, in part.

" Conflate
readings.

Tvpea of

text :

1. Western.

148 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

by the Curetonian Syriac. It appears to have been
most widely diffused in Ante-Nicene times, and is the
text of the Ante-Nicene Fathers who were not con-
nected with Alexandria, — Justin, Irenaeus, Hippolytus,
Methodius. It is an independent text, quite distinct
from all other types. Its prevailing characteristic is
a love of paraphrase and of interpolation with a view
to enrich the text. It is marked by additions, omis-
sions, and assimilations of parallel passages. These
peculiarities go to show that it originated at a time
when little regard was paid to the exact words of the
apostolic writings as compared with their substance;
probably before the end of the second century.

2. Alexandrian or Egyptian. This seems to have
proceeded from a learned and skilful hand in the be-
ginning of the third century, or even earlier. It is
found in the quotations of the Alexandrian Fathers —
Clement, Origen, Dionysius, Didymus, Cyril — and in
the Egyptian Versions, especially the Memphitic. It
also appears, in part, in Eusebius of Csesarea. Its
characteristic is that which might be expected from
the influence of a Greek literary centre — a tendency
to polish the language by correcting forms, syntax, etc.

3. Syrian. This was a mixed text, the result of a
recension or revision of editors who desired to present
the New Testament in a smooth and attractive form,
and accordingly borrowed from all sources. It is best
represented by A (in the Gospels, not in the Acts and
Epistles), and by the Peshitto as distinct from the
Curetonian. Its readings are found in the Scripture
quotations of Chrysostom, who was Bishop of Syrian
Antioch until 398, and Patriarch of Constantinople
until his death in 407 ; also in those of Theodore of
Mopsuestia (ob. 429), and of Diodorus of Antioch and
Tarsus. The group is therefore also called Antiochian.
Generally speaking, these readings are common in the

WESTCOTT AND HORT 149

Fathers of the latter part of the fourth century and in
all subsequent Fathers, but cannot be traced in the
quotations of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. " The favourite
text of Chrysostom and his age has disappeared en-
tirely from use by the time we reach Origen " (War-
field). The text is that of the mass of the cursives,
most of which were written in Constantinople, and is
mainly identical with the printed Textus Eeceptus.
It is an eclectic text, marked by conflate readings, the
elements of which are found in the other classes, and
indicates an attempt to harmonise at least three con-
flicting texts. It contains no ancient element that is
not in these.

''The qualities which the authors of the Syrian Qualities of
text seem to have most desired to impress on it are text.^"^^
lucidity and completeness. They were evidently anx-
ious to remove all stumbling-blocks out of the way of
the ordinary reader, so far as this could be done with-
out recourse to violent measures. They were appar-
ently equally desirous that he should have the benefit
of instructive matter contained in all the existing texts,
provided it did not confuse the context or introduce
seeming contradictions. New omissions, accordingly,
are rare, and where they occur are usually found to con-
tribute to apparent simplicity. New interpolations,
on the other hand, are abundant, most of them being
due to harmonistic or other assimilation, fortunately
capricious and incomplete. Both in matter and in
diction the Syrian text is conspicuously a full text.
It delights in pronouns, conjunctions, and expletives,
and supplied links of all kinds, as well as in more
considerable additions. As distinguished from the
bold vigour of the Western scribes, and the refined
scholarship of the Alexandrians, the spirit of its own
corrections is at once sensible and feeble. Entirely
blameless on either literary or religious grounds as

160 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

regards vulgarised or imworthy diction, yet showing
no marks of either critical or spiritual insight, it pre-
sents the New Testament in a form smooth and attrac-
tive, but appreciably impoverished in sense and force,
more fitted for cursory perusal or recitation than for
repeated and diligent study." ^ Syrian readings, being
later than Western and Alexandrian, and derived from
Western and older sources, are to be rejected when
their testimony differs from that of the others.
4. Neutral or 4. Neutral or pre-Syrian. This is represented by B
pre-Synan. ^^^ largely by t^, and comes nearest to the Apostolic
originals. It cannot be assigned to any local centre,
but belongs originally to all the Eastern world. It
is characterised by careful copying, and is free from
Western corruptions. It appears in places far removed
from Alexandria. In Asia Minor it was superseded
by the Western text. The common original of B and
K, for by far the greater part of their identical read-
ings, whatever may have been its own date, has a very
ancient and pure text. Their coincidences are due to
the extreme antiquity of the common original from
which the ancestors of the two manuscripts have
diverged, the date of which cannot be later than the
early part of the second century, and may well be yet
earlier. There is no clear difference of character in
the fundamental text common to B and S in any part
of the New Testament in which B is not defective.
The textual phenomena which we find when we com-
pare them singly and jointly with other documents
are, throughout, precisely those which would present
themselves in representatives of two single lines diverg-
ing from a point near the autographs, and not coming
into contact subsequently.

The readings of the Neutral text, when established,

1 Dr. Hort, Introduction, § 187.

WESTCOTT AND HORT 161

are to be accepted in the face of the numerical pre-
ponderance of other texts.

Dr. Hort thus recapitulates : "The continuity, it will Dr. Hort
be seen, is complete. Early in the second century we fates^^**^'
find the Western text already wandering into greater
and greater adulteration of the Apostolic text, which,
while doubtless holding its ground in different places,
has its securest refuge at Alexandria ; but there, in turn,
it suffers from another but slighter series of changes,
and all this before the middle of the third century.
At no long time after, we find an attempt made,
apparently at Antioch, to remedy the growing con-
fusion of texts by the editing of an eclectic text com-
bining readings from the three principal texts, itself
further revised on like principles, and in that form
used by great Antiochian theologians not long after
the middle of the fourth century. From that date,
and indeed earlier, we find a chaos of varying mixed
texts, in which, as time advances, the elder texts re-
cede, and the Antiochian text, now established at
Constantinople, increasingly prevails. Then even the
later types with mixed base disappear, and, with the
rarest exceptions, the Constantinopolitan text alone
is copied, often at first with relics of its vanquished
rivals included, till at last these two dwindle, and in
the copies written shortly before the invention of print-
ing, its victory is all but complete. At each stage
there are irregularities and obscurities ; but we believe
the above to be a true sketch of the leading incidents
in the history of the text of the New Testament ; and,
if it be true, its significance as a key to the com-
plexities of documentary evidence is patent without
explanation."

Briefly, then, while the majority of our extant manu-
scripts contain a revised, and therefore less original,
text, a comparatively small group contains texts which

152

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Reception of
Westcott
and Hort's
Testament.

Points
assailed.

The third-
century

were not subject to this revision or were prior to it.
Consequently, the evidence of this small group is
usually to be preferred to that of the great mass of
manuscripts and versions.

Westcott and Hort's New Testament received a cor-
dial welcome from many scholars in England and else-
where, from Roman Catholics as well as Protestants.^
On the other hand, the work was severely attacked by
the conservative critics, notably by Dr. Scrivener and
Dean Burgon. Perhaps the most vulnerable point was
the very corner-stone of the textual theory — the au-
thoritative recension at Antioch of the Greek text,
about the middle of the third century, which, in its
turn, became the standard for a similar revision of the
Syrian text, representing the transmutation of the
Curetonian into the Peshitto, while the Greek recen-
sion itself underwent a second revision.^ Dr. Scrivener
says : " Of this twofold authoritative revision of the
Greek text, of this formal transmutation of the Cure-
tonian Syriac into the Peshitto, although they must
have been, of necessity, public acts of great churches
in ages abounding in councils, general or provincial,
not one trace remains in the history of Christian a.ntiq-
uity ; no one writer seems conscious that any modifica-
tion, either of the Greek Scriptures or of the vernacu-
lar translation, was made in or before his time. It
is as if the Bishops' Bible had been thrust out of the
English Church service and out of the studies of her
divines, and the Bible of 1611 had silently taken its
place, no one knew how, or when, or why, or, indeed,
that any change whatever had been made. Yet, re-
garding his speculative conjecture as indubitably true,

1 Dr. Schaff has collected a number of tributes in his Com-
panion to the Greek Testament and English Version, 3d ed.,
280 ff.

2 See Hort's Introduction, §§ 189, 1»0.

CRITICISMS OF WESTCOTT AND HOST 153

Dr. Hort proceeds to name the text as it stood before
his imaginary era of transfusion, a pre-Syrian text,
and that into which it was changed, sometimes Antio-
chian, more often Syrian ; while of the latter recension,
though made deliberately, as our author believes, by
the authoritative voice of the Eastern Church, he does
not shrink from declaring that all distinctively Syrian
readings must be at once rejected, thus making a clean
sweep of all critical materials, — Fathers, Versions,
manuscripts, uncial or cursive, comprising about nine-
teen-twentieths of the whole mass, which do not corre-
spond with his preconceived opinion of what a correct
text ought to be."

Exception was also taken to the editors' omissions
from the text ; to their inconsistency in rejecting West-
ern readings on the one hand, and on the other in in-
dorsing their omissions of what was attested by other
authorities. The names given to the families of texts
were challenged. The term "Western" was declared
to be inaccurate, since the type of text so designated
was not confined to the West, and even the editors ad-
mit that readings of this class were current in the East
as well as in the West, and probably, to a great extent,
had originated there. The name " Neutral " was con-
demned, as presupposing that all additions or altera-
tions in the text were due to later corruptions. Also
the name " Alexandrian," because used in a sense not
previously employed. It was further objected that the
designation of the Curetonian Syriac as " the Old
Syriac," and of the Peshitto as " the Vulgate," begged
the whole question of the relative age of the two. The
editors were severely taken to task for assigning undue
weight to the testimony of J^ and B. " That S B should
thus lift up their heads against all the world is much,
especially having regard to the fact that several Ver-
sions and not a few Fathers are older than they ; for

Omissions.
Names
given to
families of
texts.

Designation
of Cureton-
ian as " Old
Syriac."
Undue
weight as-
signed to s
and B.

154 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

while we grant that a simple patristic citation, stand-
ing by itself, is of little value, yet when the context or
current of exposition renders it clear what reading
these writers had before them, they must surely, for
that passage, be equivalent as authorities to a manu-
script of their own age " (Scrivener).^
Revisers of The Revisers of 1881. — The history of the Eevised
Jonltnfct a* Version of 1881 is too well known to require recapitu-
Greek text, lation. Naturally a large proportion of the changes
introduced by the Eevisers grew out of differences in
the text translated. The Revisers, in the matter of
text, did not claim to be discoverers. They confined
themselves mostly to the verification and registration
of the best-established conclusions of modern textual
criticism. Their text was drawn from the best docu-
mentary sources which have been discovered in the last
three hundred years. It has been estimated that the
Greek text of 1881 differs from that of 1611 in at least
5788 readings. In their preface the Revisers say, " A
revision of the Greek text was the necessary founda-
tion of our work, but it did not fall within our province
to construct a continuous and complete Greek text."

In the English committee. Dr. Hort and Dr. Scrivener
were the recognised authorities on textual questions.
The traditional text and the later text had therefore
each a fair hearing. The Revisers followed the text of
Westcott and Hort closely, though not absolutely.
" The combination of i< B with two or more of the

1 The principal objections are well stated in the recent vol-
ume of Dr. George Salmon, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin :
Some Thoughts on the Textual Criticism of the New Testa-
ment, London, 1897. The book has a peculiar interest as
coming from a close personal friend of Dr. Hort, The textual
theory of the two editors is handled with great candour and dis-
crimination, and some of the points against it are very effec-
tively made.

scrivener's and palmer's testaments 155

greater uncials has been treated by them as all but de-
cisive. The combination of i< B with one other first-
class uncial has also had the greatest weight. There
are forty -one instances of agreement with this combi-
nation, and only three instances of difference from it.
In the case of the single pair J< B alone, there is much
greater indecision. Their authority has been followed
in from fifteen to nineteen cases, and rejected in twelve.
With any other single supporter than i^, B has carried
less weight still, the numbers here being eleven to four,
while the isolated evidence of B has been rejected in
nine out of ten cases " (Professor Sanday).^

Two editions of the Greek Testament, which have a
special interest in connection with the Eevised Version,
appeared simultaneously with the edition of Westcott
and Hort. The Revisers were not, however, responsi-
ble for their publication. Neither claimed to be an in-
dependent, critical recension of the text. The first was
by Dr. Scrivener, The New Testament in the Original
Greek according to the Text followed in the Authorised
Version, together ivith the Variations adopted in the He-
vised Version, Cambridge, 1881. The new readings
were placed at the foot of the page, and the displaced
readings were printed in the text in heavier type. The
appendix furnished a list of the j)assages in which the
Authorised Version differs from Beza's text of 1598,
and agrees with certain earlier editions of the Greek
Testament. The other edition was by Dr. E. Palmer,
Archdeacon of Oxford, H KAINH AIA0HKH. The
Greek Testament ivith the Headings adoj^ted by the Re-

1 On the Revisers' text see a series of articles by Rev. W.
Sanday, D.D., The Revised Version of the Neio Testament, in
the Expositor, 2d series, II, 1881 ; very valuable. See also Dr.
B. B. Warfield, Preshyterian Quarterly, April, 1882, and The
Revisers and the Greek Text of the New Testament, London,
1882, supposed to be by Bishop Ellicott and Archdeacon Palmer.

156 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

visers of the Authorised Versioji, Oxford, 1881. Palmer
gave the Greek text followed by the Eevisers, and
placed the rejected readings of the Textus Receptus
and of the Authorised Version in foot-notes. The con-
tinuous text has for its basis Stephen's third edition
(1550), which is followed in all cases where the Revis-
ers do not prefer other readings. Stephen's orthog-
raphy, spelling of proper names, and typographical
peculiarities or errors are, with a few exceptions, re-
tained, together with his marking of chapters. The
verses are distributed according to the Authorised Ver-
sion.

CHAPTEE XVII

RECENT CONTRIBUTIONS. WEISS. STUDIES IN
CODEX D

Dr. Bernhard Weiss of Berlin has, for some time, Dr. Weiss's
been carrying on a new and independent construction of°the^ext.^
of the text. No summary statement of his textual
principles has been presented, so far as I am aware,
either by himself or by others. The results of his
work appear in minute detail in his Neue Testament.
TextkritischeUntersuchungen unci TexthersteUung. Vol.1,
Leipzig, 1893, contains the Acts, Catholic Epistles, and
Apocalypse ; Vol. II, 1896, the Pauline Epistles. He
complains that he has been constantly annoyed in his
exegetical work by the uncertainty of the text. Neither
the usual reasons of the commentators for determining
the value of various readings nor the modern editions
of the text appeared to offer him a satisfactory and cer-
tain path toward a decision. The collations in Tischen-
dorf's apparatus need to be verified anew. He treats
the text under the heads of Omissions and Additions,
Changes of Position, and Orthographical Variations.^

Studies in the Codex Bezae. — Within a few years
special attention has been directed at the peculiar
readings of the Codex Bezse (D, Gospels and Acts)
and their bearing upon the history of the text. The
following section on this subject has been prepared by Rev. J. E.
the Kev. James Everett Erame, Instructor in the New codeiBez©

1 See C. R. Gregory, "Bernhard Weiss and the New Testa-
ment," American Journal of Theology, January, 1897.
167

168

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Contradic-
tory views
of Hort and
Burgon.

History of
Codex Bezae.

Testament Department of Union Theological Seminary,
New York.

^*When every allowance has been made for possible
individual license, the text of D presents a truer image
of the form in which the Gospels and Acts were most
widely read in the third and probably a great part of
the second century, than any other extant Greek
manuscript." So Dr. Hort (Introduction, 2d ed.,
149). Codex Bezae, along with the Sinaiticus and the
Vaticanus, exhibits "the most shamefully mutilated
text," and has become the depository of " the largest
amount of fabricated readings, ancient blunders, and
intentional perversions of truth which are discernible
in any known copies of the Word of God." So Dean
Burgon {Revision Revised, 16). These opinions have
been registered to indicate at the outset the diver-
sity of views which prevail in regard to this puz-
zling uncial.

Codex Bezse is a bilingual, Greek and Latin, so
arranged that the Greek text has the place of honour
on the left side of the open book, while the Latin
Version has the right side. It contains at present the
Gospels and Acts, though not a few leaves are miss-
ing, as, for instance. Acts 22 : 29-28 : 31, which is
lacking in both D (the Greek text) and d (the Latin
Version). It is divided into lines or verses, that is,
the arrangement is stichometric, although the divi-
sions into lines do not always correspond with the
divisions in sense. As to date, it is generally assigned
to the beginning of the sixth century. It was first
brought to public notice ten centuries later by Beza,
who got possession of it in 1562. How long it had
lain in the Monastery of Irenaeus in Lyons, whence
Beza obtained it, is uncertain. In 1581 Beza presented
it to the University of Cambridge, that it might be
preserved, but not published ; for he thought the vari-

><5>^ = f = i -

<

- < ^ r

CODEX BEZ^ 159

ants, especially in Luke, might give offence. The
warning was heeded, although Beza himself had pub-
lished some of the variants in his Greek Testament,
and other readings became known. Finally, however,
William Whiston, the translator of Josephus, did the
Codex into English in 1747; and in 1793 Thomas
Kipling pubiislied the first edition of the Codex, call- First pub-
ing it, after the name of its donor and of the Univer- Jjon^^/^^'
sity to which it was given, Tlie Cambridge Codex of Codex Bezae.
TJieodore Beza}

An accurate edition, "being an exact copy in or- Scrivener's
dinary type . . . with a critical Introduction, Anno- Nest??s^col-
tations, and Facsimiles," was issued by Scrivener in lation.
1864 (Bezce Codex Cantabrigiensis, etc.), and a colla-
tion of the readings of the Codex by Eb. Nestle (JSfovi
Testamenti Greed Supplementum, 1896). To these two
the student is referred until the appearance of the
new photogravure reproduction, now preparing under
the direction of the Cambridge authorities.

A restoration of the " Western " or Eoman text of Blass's res-
Acts and Luke has been attempted by Fried. Blass in th?^'^West-
his Acta Apostolorum, 1896 (ed. Minor), and his Evan- ern " text of
geliinn secundum Lucam, 1897. Compare, also, his Luke's Gos-
Editio PMlologka of Acts, 1895.^ pel-

The present extraordinary interest in Codex Bezae
is due, not so much to the fact of its variations from
some given text, the Keceptus or Westcott and Hort,

1 WiUiam "Whiston, Primitive New Testament^ 1747. He
also translated the Codex Claromontanus (Paul) and the Codex
Alexandriuus (Catholic Epistles). Thomas Kipling, Codex
Theodori Bezce Cantabrigiensis, 1793.

2 See 0. von Gebhardt, article "Bibeltext," Herzog's Beal-
Encyklopddie, Bd. II, S. 743. C. A, Briggs, Study of Holy
Scripture, 1899, 200 ff. H. Trabaud, " Un Curieux Manuscrit
du Nouveau Testament," Beviie de Thiol, et de Phil, 1896,
378 ff. Gregory's Prolegomena, or any good Introduction, as
Holtzmann, Julicher, Weiss, Salmon.

160

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

for instance, as to the uniqueness of its variations.
In addition to the ordinary inaccuracies due to the
writer of the Codex, or his archetype, or both, and the
usual corruptions common to all codices, Codex D ex-
hibits certain characteristic tendencies; such as the
love for adding or recasting words, clauses, or sen-
tences, and for harmonising apparently contradictory
passages. As a specimen of the additions which this
Codex alone contributes, see Luke 6. After the fourth
verse we read, "On the same day, as He (Jesus) be-
held a man labouring on the Sabbath, he said to him :
Man, if thou knowest what thou doest, blessed art
thou ; if however thou dost not know, cursed art thou
and a transgressor of the law." In Luke 11 : 2, be-
tween the words "pray" and "say," we read, "Use
not vain repetitions as the rest do, for some think that
they shall be heard for their much speaking. On the
contrary, when ye pray," etc. In Acts 12 : 10, after
" they went out," there is added, " and they descended
the seven steps." In Acts 10:25, we find, "When
Peter drew near unto Csesarea, one of the slaves ran
forward and announced his arrival. And Cornelius
jumped up." In Acts 11 : 27, after " Antioch," there
is added, "and there was great rejoicing. And we
being assembled," etc. This addition is interesting in
the light of the so-called we-sections in Acts.

It must not, however, be assumed from these few
examples, that all the contributions of this Codex are
alike interesting and valuable. As a matter of fact,
the tendency of Codex Bezse is to " conflate " the text,
and thus most of the contributions are nothing more
than simple glosses.^ Furthermore, it must not be
assumed that D stands alone in its variations. Rather
it is a member of an ancient and honourable family.

1 For detailed proof, see B. Weiss, Der Codex D in der Apos-
telgeschichte {Texte und Untersuchungen, XVII, 1897).

CODEX BEZ^ 161

The form of text which it preserves is supported by
many Church Fathers of the second and following
centuries, and by the Old Latin and Syriac Versions.
Thus, although the Codex itself dates from the begin-
ning of the sixth century, yet the type of text which Type of text
it represents is traceable as far back as the second second^cen^
century. It is to be found, for instance, in Cyprian tury.
and Tertullian at Carthage, and in Irenaeus at Lyons,
where Codex Bezae was discovered ; and traces of it
appear in Clement and Origen at Alexandria, as well
as at Kome.^

The Old Latin Versions, and the Versions in Syriac
(Curetonian, Philoxenian, Lewis), likewise present a
similar type of text. In fact, it is generally admitted
that about the year 200 a type of text similar to that
of Codex Bezae was spread abroad in Syria and in the
West. Nay, more, traces of this text may possibly
exist in Justin Martyr and Marcion, that is, as early
as the first half of the second century, and thus it may
be that Codex D represents the oldest edition of the
New Testament books which gained a wide circulation.^
To this type of text the term "Western" has been The term
applied since the time of Semler, and has been appro- Jj'aTno ^eo-
priated also by Hort.^ It is a conventional symbol, graphical
and has no distinctively geographical signification. It tifn.^^^*"
is to the East that most scholars look for the origin
of the Western text, and specifically to Syria and
Antioch. Thence it spread over the lines of com-
merce to Southern Gaul, Carthage, Eome, and Alex-
andria. Codex Bezae thus does not stand alone. The
majority of its typical characteristics are to be found

1 See P. Corssen, Der Cyprianische Text der Acta Aposto-
loriim, Berlin, 1892. Hort, Introduction, 113.

2 See W. Bousset, Theologische Bundschau, I, 406-416, Juli,
1898, S. 410.

8 See Gregory's Prolegomena, 188. Hort, Introduction, 113.

162

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

1. Theory of
Latinisation
held by Mill,
Wetstein,
J. R. Harris.

2. Chase's
theory of
Syriacisa-
tion.

throughout the entire Western group. Thus, in Matt.
20 : 28, we find D supported in its insertion, or in
Luke 10:42; 22:19-20; 23:34, supported in its
omissions. Bearing in mind, therefore, that Codex
Bezae is a member of a family, and the Baconian
warning as to the vice of neglecting negative in-
stances, we proceed to give a summary of recent
opinions concerning the type of text represented by
this Codex.

1. Theory of Latinisation. — In facing a Grseco-Latin
codex the first question is : Is the Greek text de-
pendent upon the Latin, or is each independent ? The
prevailing view up to the time of Griesbach was that
the Western Greek text is due to a readjustment to
the Latin Versions (so Mill, Wetstein). This " whim-
sical " (Hort) theory, given up by Griesbach and his
successors, is defended by J. Kendel Harris {Study of
the Codex Bezoi, 1891), who attempts to prove " that
the whole of the Greek text of Codex Bezae, from the
beginning of Matthew to the end of Acts, is a re-
adjustment of an earlier text to the Latin Version."
"The Greek has no certain value except where it
differs from its own Latin, and must not any longer be
regarded as an independent authority." And three
years later {Four Lectures on the Western Text, 1894,
73), " The Bezan Latin is more archaic than the Bezan
Greek."

2. Theory of Syriacisation. — Professor Harris's
study induced another Cambridge scholar. Professor
r. H. Chase, to investigate the Codex, and especially
the text of Acts, with the result that " the Bezan Greek
is moulded on a Syrian text," a conclusion which
seemed to disprove the theory of Latinisation.^ In
his study, Professor Chase was led to assume the

F. H. Chase, The Old Syriac Element in Codex Bezae, 1893.

CODEX BEZjE

163

existence of an old Syriac text of the Acts, of which
Hort had said, twelve years previously, "Nothing as
yet is known " (Introduction, 85). Professor Harris,
in a review of Professor Chase's book, thinks he has
removed the hypothesis of an old Syriac text of Acts
into the region of fact (an opinion which seems to
have been confirmed by the discovery of Mrs. Lewis),
but does not feel himself compelled to give up the
theory of Latinisation.^

Probably no one theory explains all the variations
in the text of the Codex. The Latinisation theory
may explain some, the Syriacisation theory others ;
while the usual theory that the Latin has been ad-
justed to the Greek may explain still others. It can-
not be said that the Codex represents the only pure
text, as Bornemann,^ nor that it is the most depraved
text, as Burgon.^ At all events, the relation of Codex
Bezse to the Old Latin and Old Syriac texts seems to
have been established.

3. Tlieory of Jewish-Christian Origin. — Dr. Eeschis
in search of an original Gospel in Hebrew. He is in-
terested in every possible genuine "agraphon," any
Hebraising text which may point to an original He-
brew text, and any variants in the Gospel texts or in
the citations of the Fathers. The variants, therefore,
in the Gospels of Codex Bezae and its Western rela^
tives are of immense importance to him. He holds
with Credner the theory of the Jewish-Christian origin
of the Codex Bezae, though, unlike Credner, he recog-
nises its relation to the Old Latin and Old Syriac texts,
and, like Professor Harris, holds that a primitive bi-
lingual existed before the time of Tatian. The " un-

1 See Hackmann on Chase, Theol. Lits., 1894; col. 604-609.
Harris, Four Lectures, etc., 14 ff.

2 Acta Apostolorum, etc., I, 1848.
' Revision Revised, 12.

No one
theory ex-
plains all
the varia-
tions.

3. Resch's
and Cred-
ner's theory
of Jewish-
Christian
origin.

Luke.

164 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

known authority " of Credner, which lies at the back of
the Western text as one of its sources, is identified
by Resch with a secondary translation of the original
Hebrew Gospel. The "great unknown" of Credner,
Professor Bousset thinks, has a good deal of the ghost
in it. Dr. Eesch's theory has met with little accept-
ance among scholars. Professor Harris does not think
the theory impossible, but notes that the palseo-
graphical facts are against it. Professor Ropes, in his
review of Resch's Agrapha, feels certain that the
theory of Jewish-Christian origin has been conclu-
sively refuted.^
4. Blass's 4. Theory of Two Editions of Acts and Luke. — To be

two°ediUons considered more at length is the theory of the philolo-
of Acts and gist, Professor Priedrich Blass of Halle, first published
in an article entitled Twofold Tradition of the Text in
Acts (1894), and in its latest form extended now to
the Gospel of Luke (1897). The reader is referred
especially to the Praefatio in his Evangelium secun-
dum Lucain (1897), although there is some additional
material in his Philology of the Gospels (1898). Pro-
fessor Blass has written extensively in support of
his theory, confining his attention at first to the double
form of the text in Acts. His theory, as first stated,
is that Luke issued two copies, a rough draft, repre-
sented by the Western text, and the corrected and less
prolix copy, represented by the usual text. The former

1 See A. Resch, Aussercanonische Faralleltexte zu den
Evangelien, 1893-96 {Texte und Untersuclmngen, X, 1-4).
K. A. Credner, Beitrdge zur Einleitung in die bihlischen
Schriften, 1832, I, 452-518. J. R. Harris, Four Lectures, etc.,
4 ; 1-13. W. Bousset, Die Evangeliencitate Ju^tins des Mdr-
tyrers, 1891, S. 7. F?iu\Ewa\d, Das Haitptpj'oblem der Evan-
gelienfrage u. s. lo., 1890, holds to Credner's theory. J. H.
Ropes, Die SprUche Jesu, 1896, a careful sifting of Rcsch's
Agrapha. Also review by him and Professor Torrey in Ameri-
can Journal of Theology, April, 1899.

CODEX BEZjS 165

was designed for Roman readers, the latter for The-
ophilus.^

The theory of two editions is not new. Joannes The two-
Clericus, in the last century, was almost of the opinion theory not
that Luke edited the Acts twice (Acta Apostolorum, new. cieri-
ed. Minor, III. Reference to Clericus or Hemsterhuis Ligiitfoot.'
not exact). Hort also had thought that " the purely
documentary phenomena (were) compatible with the
supposition that the Western and the non- Western texts
started respectively from a first and a second edition
of the Gospels, both conceivably apostolic " (Introduc-
tion, 177), but dismisses the theory on internal grounds.
Lightfoot also had suggested that " the Evangelist him-
self might have issued two separate editions " of his
Gospel and also of the Acts.^ Professor Zahn also,
in the winter of 1885-86, had come to the opinion that
the Bezan text of Acts represents " either the rough
draft of the author before publication, or the copy

1 The Philology of the Gospels is a dilution of his admira-
ble preface to Luke, adapted to English readers who do not
read Latin. Professor C. R. Gregory, in a review of the book
(American Journal of Theology, October, 1898, 881), calls it a
series of "rambling observations." The title " Philology " is
certainly misleading, as is that of " Gospels."

For convenience, the following list of Professor Blass's writ-
ings on the subject is appended : —

Stiid. u. Krit. 1894, S. 86-120, " Die Zweif ache Texttiberlief er-
ung in der Apostelgeschichte." Neue kirchliche Zeitschr. 1895,
S. 712-725, "Ueber die verschiedenen Textesformen in den
Schriften des Lucas." Hermathena, 1895, 121-143 (IX, No. 31),
" De duplici forma Actorum Lucse." Acta Apostolorum, Edi-
tio Philologica, 1895. Stud. u. Krit. 1896, S. 436-471, " Neue
Texteszeugen fur die Apostelgeschichte." Ibid., S. 733 ff. (on
Luke 22: 15 ff.). Acta Apostolorum (ed. Minor), 1S96. Her-
mathena, 1896, 291 ff., "De Variis Formis EvangeKi Lucani."
Evangelium secundum Liicam, 1897. Philology of the Gospels,
1898.

* Fresh Bevision of the English New Testament, 1873, 43.

166

TEXTUAL CBITICISM

(Handexemplar) belonging to the author, along with
supplementary marginal notes." ^ But Blass deserves
whatever credit there is' in the theory. At first, as has
been noted, Blass spoke of " rough draft " and " cor-
rected copy." The Western text corresponded with
the former, and the usual text with the latter. When,
however, he applied the hypothesis to the Gospel of
Luke, he found that the Western text of Luke corre-
sponded with the corrected copy, while the usual text
corresponded with the rough draft ; or, in a word, that
the text-phenomena in Acts and in Luke were dissimi-
lar (Evang. Luc, V ff. Acta, ed. Minor, V., Philology,
etc., 103). An amendment to the theory became nec-
essary. The theory as amended " requires merely one
older copy and one more recent." ^ The more recent
copy is abridged, the work "becoming somewhat tedious
for the author, or at least losing something of its fresh-
ness for him, so that he w^as naturally disposed to
omit many unessential circumstances and details which
he formerly had given." ^ The curious result is that
the abridged edition of the Gospel is represented by
the Western text, that of Acts by the non-Western
text. Theophilus gets an unabridged edition of the
Gospel, and an abridged edition of Acts; while the
readers in Rome get an abridged edition of the Gospel
and an unabridged edition of Acts. Both seem to
have been content with the arrangement. In support
of the theory for Acts, Blass urges (1) that the lan-
guage of the additions and variants of the Western
text is Lucan, and (2) that the additions themselves
are possible only to a contemporary, that is, to the
author himself.* At this point Blass remarks that it
is easier to test the insertions of the Western (or as he

1 Einleitung in das Neue Testament^ Bd. II, 1899, S. 338-
369. Compare S. 348.

2 Philology, 126. • Ibi^.^ 104. * Ibid., 113 ft., 119 ff.

CODEX BEZ^ 167

prefers to call it, Roman) text of Acts than to test the
omissions of the Western text of the Gospel, and,
hence, that it is easier to defend the theory of two edi- Theory of
tions in the case of Acts than in the case of Luke.^ more^ easily^
In applying his theory to the Gospel, he notes the defended in
difficulty of restoring the Western text. Conflations Luke's
and assimilations are more prevalent in the Synoptic Gospel.
Gospels than elsewhere, and so therefore in Luke.
The pure Western text of the Latin palimpsest of
rieury and the Greek Codex Laudianus are unavail-
able for Luke. Justin ^lartyr cannot be used. The
texts, therefore, upon which he must rely — the Old
Latin and Syriac Versions, Tatian, Marcion, the Ferrar-
Group — represent a mixed type of text, that is, give
us a mixture of the Western or Koman and the non-
Western or Antiochian. Thus we are left largely to
the Greek of Codex Bezse for a relatively unmixed
Western text. In Acts, the characteristic of the Bezan
text is its additions ; in Luke, however, it is its omis-
sions.^

In Luke's Gospel, then, Blass begins with the omis-
sions, and selects as test cases 8 : 43 ; 10 : 41 ; 12 : 19 ;
19 : 29 ; and concludes that the abridgments cannot
be explained away as spurious, and that, therefore, as
genuine, they are evidence of two editions. Coming
next to the relatively few cases of insertion, he treats
first the story of the man working on the Sabbath
(6:5), and notes that it has a genuine ring, although
indeed no Church Father records this tradition.^ The
reason that Luke omitted the story in his edition for
Theophilus was, that it might give offence to Christian
Jews, while the Roman readers would find in the nar-

1 Philology, 103, 144.

2 On the Ferrar-Group, see J. Rendel Harris, On the Origin
of the Ferrar-Group^ 1803.

8 See Ropes, Die Spriiche Jesu, S. 124-126.

168

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

John 7 : 53-
8 : 11 attrib-
uted to
Luke.

Reception of

Blass'3

theory.

rative no occasion of stumbling.^ Similarly, the Fer-
rar-Group attributes the section about the woman
taken in adultery (John 7 : 53-8 : 11) to Luke, insert-
ing it after Luke 21 : 38. Blass, however, thinks the
section should be put two verses earlier, and after
some further conjectures notes that the language of
the section is Lucan. The reason that Luke omitted
in his copy for Theophilus, and inserted in the copy
for Rome, is precisely the same as in the former case.
It is evident, however, that Blass is not so confident
either of his restoration of the text, or of his theory
of two editions in the case of the Gospel, as he is in the
case of Acts. He admits that the text phenomena in
Luke are not easily solvable, and says he is " very far
from pretending this solution to be, as it were, a key
which unlocks all doors." ^

The theory attracted the attention of scholars imme-
diately, and has found favour in the eyes of several
critics, as Nestle, Belser, and Salmon. This consent
may be due, as Bousset suggests, to apologetic inter-
ests. Zockler and Zahn were inclined to approve it for
Acts, though not for the Gospel. On the other hand,
the theory was contested by other scholars. Corssen,
for instance, has attempted to show the un-Lucan
character of the Roman text, and Ramsay thinks the
text has " a fatal smoothness : it loses the rather harsh
but very individual style of Luke, and it neglects some
of the literary forms that Luke observed." It gives
a mixed but valuable second-century text, shows a
second-century interpretation of various passages, and
adds several good bits of information, though they
were not written by Luke, except perhaps in a few
cases (Expositor, 1897, 469).^

1 Evang. Luc, XLVI-XLVII. 2 phUology, 168.

8 See Blass, Prcefatio in Lucam, where he meets some of the
■objections. E. Nestle, Einfuhrung in das Griechische Neue

CODEX BEZ^ 169

5. Tlieory of Bernhardt Weiss. — There is no sturdier Blass's
opponent of the theory of Blass than Professor Weiss poled^y^
of Berlin. In his study of the Bezan text he does not B. Weiss,
propose to examine the hypothesis of two editions
as such, but rather to determine whether the Western
text of Acts is earlier or later than that of the ancient
majuscules. His theory is that the Western text has
almost no authority whatever. In emphasising, there-
fore, the almost complete worthlessness of the Western
text, he tacitly endeavours to shatter the hypothesis
of Blass. Looking carefully at all negative instances,
and weighing the evidence of the majority of the
variants, Weiss obtains antecedent probability against
the genuineness of the Western readings. The usual
corruptions in D are no more peculiar to D than to
other codices. Moreover, there is a motive discernible
in the recasting of the text, namely, to change pur-
posely the older majuscules. Now of two texts, the
one which is more easily explained from the other is
secondary. Thus B, far from having variants which
are Lucan, is rather a '' reflektierte Nachbesserung"
of the older majuscules. The Western and non-

Testament,'" S. 100, 101. J. Belser (R. C), Beitrdge zur Er-
kldrung der Apostelgeschichte, 1897. G. Salmon, Introduction
to the New Testament, 1897, 592 ff. Ibid., So7ne Thoughts on
the Textual Criticism of the Xeio Testament, 1897. W. Bous-
set, Theologische Bundschau, 1898, I, 413. O. Zockler, Sticdia
Giyphisioaldensia, 1895, S. 132 ff. The. Zahn, Einleitung in
das Neue Testament, 1899, II, S. 338 ff., 346. 0. Zockler, Be-
weis des Glaubens, 1898, S. 28-35. Corssen, Gott. gel. Am.
1896, S. 425 ff. W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller and the
Roman Citizen, 3d ed., 1897, 25. Ibid., The Church in the
Soman Empire, 3d ed., 1894, 151-165. Also Expositor, 1895,
129 ff., 212 ff. ; 1897, 460-471.

Against Blass see also Jiilicher, Einleitung in das Neue Tes-
tament, 1894, S. 271. H. Holtzmann, Th. Litz., 1896, No. 3;
1898, col. 536-539. W. Bousset, Theologische Bundschau, 1898,
I, 406-416.

170 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

The Western Western texts are not independent witnesses: the
Western' former depends upon the latter. The changes, to be
texts not in- sure, are early, arising long before the canonisation of
w^itnesses. Acts. They do not appear, with slight exceptions, in
the speeches of Acts. " Nowhere in the matter of the
text is anything essentially changed, or a new point
added in reference to the movements of the history."
The changes themselves are not uniform in character.
Some are unique, most are akin to the changes com-
mon to all texts. The Western readings therefore
have no independent authority whatever, and can
certainly not be attributed to one hand as the Blass
theory requires.^

The objections to the theory of Blass may be
summed up as follows: (1) Its simplicity is really
an argument against it. Phenomena so complex de-
mand a more complex solvent than is furnished by a
single hypothesis. (2) The uniform character of the
variants demanded by the hypothesis is made d priori
unlikely by the striking dissimilarity of the AVestern
text of Acts from that of Luke. Moreover, Blass has
not proved the uniform character of the variants. (3)
The motive assigned for the omission in the copy for
n1/ Theophilus and the insertion in the copy for Roman

readers of such sections as that of the man working on
the Sabbath, or of the woman taken in adultery, — the
motive, namely, that the Jewish Christians would be
offended, — cannot be taken seriously. Why are not
other uncomfortable words of Jesus about the law
omitted in the copy for Theophilus ? (4) The motive
likewise for abridging one copy each of the Gospel
and of Acts, namely, that the author found his work
tedious, cannot be considered a serious argument. (5)

1 See B. Weiss, "Der Codex D in der Apostelgeschichte,
1897, Texte nnd Untersvchungen, XVII. Compare "Die Apos-
telgeschichte," 1893, Texte nnd Untersuchungen, IX, 3, 4.

CODEX BEZ^ 171

The text-phenomena of Luke do not require the two-
edition hypothesis, any more than those of Mark or
Matthew or John. Starting with the variants of
Luke, and then passing over to Acts, even these
unique readings in Acts may be explained on other
grounds more successfully. (6) The great fault is the
neglect of negative instances. Instead of starting with
a few brilliant readings, he should have begun with
the great majority of ordinary readings. The analogy
of the phenomena of the Western text as a whole
should have been the basis of the opinion on a few
brilliant readings in the Bezan text of Acts. Blass
should have given a careful and systematic study to
the Western texts as a whole, before asserting his
theory on the basis chiefly of one codex.

6. Theory of Westcott and Hort. — Westcott and Hort
think that Tischendorf, under the influence of the
Sinaiticus, and without definite principles, has ad-
mitted too many Western readings into his editions.
They feel that these readings, when confronted with
their rivals, generate a sense of distrust, which dis-
trust is but increased upon further and intimate ac-
quaintance. To be sure, Codex Bezae, more clearly
than any other extant Greek manuscript, reveals a
type of text most widely read in the third, and prob-
ably in the second century; but, they bid us notice,
antiquity and purity are not synonymous terms. The
tendency of the Western texts is toward fulness, con-
flation, in which tendency they stand unrivalled. The
motive in all this is apparent. It is hard, however, to
explain omissions in a type of text whose character-
istic is fulness. In comparing the non-Western texts
with the Western texts at the points where the latter
omit and the former retain, we are led to the hypothe-
sis that what are omissions in these Western texts are
interpolations in the usually trustworthy non- Western

172

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Westcott
and Hort
midway be-
tween Blass
and Weiss
in estimate
of the
Western
text.

Professor
Salmon. A
text at Rome
differing
from the
Alexan-
drian.

texts. Thus only one class of phenomena in the
Western readings can claim attention, namely, the
omissions, or, more correctly, the non-interpolations.
The theory of Westcott and Hort is the theory of
Western non-interpolations. They therefore stand
midway between Weiss and Blass in their estimate of
the Western type of text. But have they given suf-
ficient prominence to Western readings ? On their
principle, a small handful of Western authorities
may, at times, overthrow the combined authority of
B and S, while, at other times, B holds the field alone
against the combined armies of West and East. This
difficulty has led to the warning against a " Westcott
and Hort ab omnibus receptus."

7. Theory of Professor Salmon. — The Dublin scholar
thinks that Westcott and Hort have given us the text
as read in Alexandria, probably in the third century,
and possibly before the end of the second. But there
existed at the same time in Eome a text which differed
in some respects from the Alexandrian text. The
trouble with Dr. Hort is that he does not admit the
possibility of an independent Western tradition.^ It
would seem as if he were under the influence of a pre-
conceived theory as to the existence of original auto-
graphs. But suppose there are editors at work in the
Synoptic Gospels. Can we speak of the individual
writings of the individual authors in the light of the
traces of the secondary character, say of the First Gos-
pel ? ^ The textual critic must take into account the
Synoptic Problem. And further, suppose, with Blass,
that there are two editions of the Third Gospel and
the Acts. Which is the original autograph ? " If we
desire a text absolutely free from ambiguity, we desire
what God has never been pleased to give His church." ^

1 Some Thoughts^ etc. , 66.

^ Ibid., etc., 130.

•^Ibid., etc., 105.

CODEX BEZM

178

Coming now to the theory of Blass, Dr. Salmon
points out the fact that the documentary evidence is
too late to give us " authentic information as to the
circumstances of their first publication."^ There is,
therefore, no " external evidence enabling us either to Hypothesis
confirm or to reject the hypothesis of a double edition." edition to\;e
Internal evidence must decide.^ Now, although the decided by
reconstruction of the Western text given by Blass does dence onfy.^
not commend itself in toto to Salmon, there are, never-
theless, some variations which rest upon the authority
of Luke.' Blass has made out a good case for Acts,*
and probably a similar hypothesis would cover the
facts in the Gospel. But the dissimilarity of the text-
phenomena in the Gospel and in Acts, and the inherent
difficulties in the text of the Gospels, arising from
early conformations, make an alternative theory to
that of Blass more probable for the Gospel, namely,
that explanatory readings were given by Luke in
Home and were preserved in the West. There was,
however, no definite written text ; otherwise we could
reproduce it now. Rather the explanatory readings
are added to the Alexandrian text as of coordinate and
equal authority, since there was no theory of verbal
inspiration to molest or to make afraid.^ Thus the
Roman text differs from the Alexandrian as a second
edition of a book differs from the first.^ At all events,
the Western variations are not the licentious additions
of audacious scribes, but many of them represent the
form in which the Gospel was read in the church of
Rome in apostolic or subapostolic times.^

The objective summary of recent opinion upon Codex

1 Some Thoughts, etc., 134. * Hid., etc., 139.

2 Compare Hort, Introduction, 177. ^ Ibid., etc.. 147-151.
* Some Thoughts, etc., 137. « Ibid., etc., 168.

' Ibid., etc., 151. See also G. Salmon's Introduc-

tion to the New Testament, 8tli ed., 1897, 692 ff.

174

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Professor
Harris on
the Bezan
text.

Bezae and its relatives attempted above will, I think,
enable the reader to appreciate the suggestive remark
of Professor Harris, with which I conclude the sketch.
" The more we think of it, the more complex does the
Bezan text become. It has passed through the hands
of a number of people of active mind, whose remarks
are stratified in the Western text : they are not all of
them S3'rians, and it is not yet even proved that there
are no Western expansions which are original. The
whole history of the text requires renewed and careful
inquisition, without prejudice in favour of the solvent
power of a single hypothesis." ^

Review of
the history
of Textual
Criticism of
the New
Testament.

A real
advance.

In reviewing the history of Textual Criticism of the
New Testament we have marked, in the beginning, the
superstitious reverence for the text which opposed
all attempts to investigate or amend it; but, with a
strange inconsistency, attached itself, not to the Greek
Original, but to its Latin representative. We have
marked the transference of the same superstition to a
Greek text based upon a few late and inferior manu-
scripts, and invested with a factitious authority through
the audacity of a clever publisher. We have marked
the slow process of unseating this textual idol, the reso-
lute assertion by scholars of the authority of the most
ancient witnesses, and the efforts to bring the New
Testament text into accordance with their testimony.
We have marked the formulation of textual principles
and the development of critical methods.

There has been a great and real advance. It has
come to be accepted that Scripture is not a fetich, but
is fairly open, like other literary productions, to the
same critical tests which are applied to other litera-
ture, and that such criticism, so far from implying
irreverence, is one of the highest marks of respect that
can be shown toward the Bible.

1 Four Lectures, etc., 89.

GENERAL REVIEW 175

The Textus Receptiis has been remanded to its
proper place as a historical monument, and has been
summaril}^ rejected as a basis for a correct text.

In weighing the evidence for readings, the emphasis
has been shifted from the number to the quality of
manuscripts. In other words, it is an accepted princi-
ple that manuscripts are to be weighed and not counted.

It is recognised that every class of textual facts is
to be taken into account ; that internal evidence is to
be subordinated to external evidence, and that conclu-
sions as to the character and relative importance of
manuscripts are to be reached by a study of their
affinities ; in other words, by the application of the
genealogical method.

Still, much remains to be done. "Whoever should Much still to
conclude," says Dr. Nestle, "that New Testament
criticism has reached its goal, would greatly err. As
the archaeologist in Olympia or Delphi exhumes the
shattered temples, and essays to recombine the frag-
ments in their ancient splendour, so, much labour is still
needed before all the stones shall have been collected,
and the sanctuary of the New Testament writings re-
stored to its original form."

The noble work of Westcott and Hort, by its wide The work ot
range, its laborious research and its boldness, has com- and^Hort
manded a large measure of assent, but it cannot be not final,
said to be decisive, even as the consensus respecting it
is by no means universal. There is some danger of
Westcott and Hort's text coming to be regarded as a
second Textus Receptus. It has taken time to grasp
their principles and method. Professor Salmon justly
remarks that "the foundations of their system are
buried out of sight of ordinary readers of their work.
Their theories are based on immense inductions, in the
course of which they must, witli enormous labour, have
tabulated comparative lists of the peculiarities of

176

TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Results from
studies of D
not final.

Activity of
special
scholarship
and archae-
ological re-
search.

manuscripts or groups of manuscripts." Eighteen
years, however, have enabled critics to digest, and to
apprehend their processes and conclusions as a whole,
with the result of calling forth more than one ringing
challenge. Their theory of the double recension of the
text in the middle of the third century, their genea-
logical nomenclature, and their too exclusive reliance
upon the testimony of B and b< are alike the subjects
of incisive criticism.

The results evolved from the special studies of Codex
Bezse are alike suggestive and promising, but cannot
be accepted as final.

With gratitude for the substantial gains, both in
material and in method, since the appearance of Eras-
mus's first edition, we must still be content to wait.
Meanwhile, accurate special scholarship is busy in
testing the old positions, exposing w^eak points, or de-
tecting fresh confirmations. Archaeological research
is diligent, and such discoveries as the Gospel of Peter,
the Lewis palimpsest, and the Oxyrliynchus fragments
afford promises and prophecies of other discoveries
which may lead the student nearer to the primitive
sources of New Testament Scripture, and settle many
questions which are still in dispute.

Toward one result the course of textual criticism
appears to be slowly but surely moving — the modifica-
tion and, in part, the abandonment of the idea of origi-
nal autographs as an object of search. Whether the
theory of the double editions of Acts and Luke be vin-
dicated or not, whatever may be the final decision con-
cerning the documents represented in Acts, enough
has been developed to make it evident that different
forms of a New Testament document may be due to
the author himself, and that editorship may have en-
larged, modified, or changed the form in which the
document originally came from the author's pen.

APPENDIX

The following list is added of books of reference
not 'elsewhere mentioned.

PALiEOGRAPHY

V. Gardthausen : Griechische Palaeographie. Leipzig, 1879.
Fried. Blass : Palaeographie, BUcherwesen und Handschriften-

kunde. In Miiller, Handbuch der Mass. Alterthumswissen-

schaft. 2 Ausg. Bd. I. Miinchen, 1892.
W. Wattenbach : Anleiiung zur griech. Palaeographie. 2 Ausg.

Leipzig, 1877.
Ibid. : ScripturcB Grcecos Specimina. Berlin, 1883.
Ibid, and A. von Velsen : Exempla Codicum Grcecorum lift.

minusc. scriptorum. Heidelberg, 1878. Fol. 50 plates.
Ibid.: Schrifttafeln zur Geschichte der Griechischen Schrift.

1877.
E. A. Bond and E. M. Thompson : Facsimiles of Ancient

Manuscripts. Palaeographical Society of London, 1873-82.
T. W. Allen: Notes on Abbreviations in Greek Manuscripts.

With facsimiles. Oxford, 1889.
W. A. Copinger: The Bible and its Transmission. With 28

facsimiles. London, 1897.

Autographs

J. R. Harris: New Testament Autographs. Supplement to
American Journal of Philology, No. 12. Baltimore, 1882.

Critical Editions of the Greek Testament

C. Tischendorf : Novum Testamentum Greece. Editio Octava
Critica Major. 3 vols. Prolegomena, IH, by C. R.
Gregory. Leipzig, 1869-94.

A small edition of the text of the 8th ed. with a selection
of readings, 1878.

N 177

178 TEXTUAL CRITICISM

Ed. by O. von Gebhardt, with variants of Tregelles and
Westcott and Hort. 5th ed. 1891.

B. F. Westcott and F. J. A. Hort : The New Testament in the
Original Greek. 2 vols. American edition, with an Intro-
duction by Philip Schaff. New York. 3d ed. 1883.

E. Palmer : The Greek Testament with the Readings adopted
by the Revisers of the Authorised Version, and with Refer-
ences in the Margin to Parallel Passages of the Old and New
Testament. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1882. Very hand-
some tj'^pography. An edition in smaller type, with a
wide margin for notes.

F. H. A. Scrivener : Novum Testainenium. Textus Stephanici.
With various readings of Beza, the Elzevirs, Lachmann,
Tischendorf, Tregelles, Westcott and Hort, and the re-
visers. Cambridge and London, 1887. New readings at
the foot of the page, and the displaced readings of the
text in heavier tj^pe.

W. Sanday : Lloyd's edition of Mill's text, with parallel ref-
erences, Eusebian Canons, etc., and three Appendices
(published separately), containing variants of Westcott
and Hort, and a selection of important readings with
authorities, together with readings from Oriental Ver-
sions, Memphitic, Armenian, and Ethiopic. Oxford, 1889.

R. F. Weymouth : The Resultant Greek Testament. Readings
of Stephen (1550), Lachmann, Tregelles, Lightfoot, and
(for the Pauline Epistles) Ellicott. Also of ALford and
Weiss for Matthew, the Basle edition, Westcott and Hort,
and the revisers. London, 1892.

J. Baljon : Novum Testamentum Gr(Ece prcesertim in usum stu-
diosorum. Groningae, 1898. W. Bousset (Theologische
Rundschau, July, 1898, S. 416) characterises it as often a
bad, inaccurate, unsystematic excerpt from Tischendorf's
8thMaj. The readings of Persian, Ethiopic, and Armenian
Versions are untrustworthy, even in Tischendorf.

E. Nestle : Testamentum Novum Greece cum Apparatu Critico.
Stuttgart, 1898. Will not save the use of editions with
the manuscript variants.

F. Schjott : Novum Testamentum Greece ad fdem Testium Ve-
tustissimorum cognovit. Adds various readings from the
Elzevirs and Tischendorf.

APPENDIX 179

Fried. Blass : Acta Apostoloruni sive Luccead Theophilum Liber
Alter secundum for mam qucE videtur Romanam. Leipzig,
1896.

Ibid. : Evangelium secundum Lucam sive Lucce ad Theophilum
Liber Prior secundum Formam quce videtur Romanam. Leip-
zig, 1897.

Convenient Manuals

Eb. Nestle : Einf'dhrung in das griechische Neue Testament.
Gottingen, 1897.

C. E. Hammond: Outlines of Textual Criticism applied to the
New Testament. 5th rev. ed. Oxford, 1890.

F. G. Kenyon : Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts. 3d
ed. London, 1897.

P. Schaff : A Companion to the Greek Testament and the Eng-
lish Version. 3d rev. ed. New York, 1888.

B. B. Warfield: An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of
the New Testament. New York, 1887.

E. C. Mitchell : The Critical Handbook of the Greek New Tes-
tament. New edition. New York, 1896. Useful catalogue
of manuscripts.

A catalogue of editions of the Greek Testament,
prepared by the late Dr. Isaac H. Hall, may be found
in Schaff's Companion.

INDEX

Abbot, Ezra, 12. 67, 120, 123,

143
Accents, 8, 19
Achelis, H., 41
Adler, J. G. C, 98
Alcala, 49, 50
Aldus Manutius, 48, 53
Alford, H., 138
Alter, F. K., 98
Ambrose, 40

Ammonian sections, 9, 10, 21,
Ammonius, 9, 10
Apostolic Fathers, 38
Aristion, 35
Athos, Mt., 97, 136
Augusti, 104
Autographs, 2, 3, 4, 77, 176

Baethgen, 33
Barberini readings, 67
Barnabas, Epistle of, 16, 17
Bartolocci, 130
Bebb, L. J. M., 41
Belser, J,, 168, 169
Bengel, J. A., 76, 87-89, 90
Bensley,R. L., 31, 33
Bentley. Richard, 69, 70, 139

Proposals of, 70-75
Berger, S., 28
Berlin Academy, 37
Bertheau, C, 93, 129
Beza, Theo., 58, 63, 168
Birch, A., 98, 130
Blass, F., 159, 164-168
Bloomfield, S. T., 115
Bodleian Library, 23, 34
Bonwetsch, G., 41
Bosworth and Waring, 3§

129,

22

Bousset, W., 164, 169

Breathings, 8, 19

Briggs, C. A., 159

British Museum, 14, 19, 28, 34

British and Foreign Bible Soci-
ety, 23

Burgon, J. W., 41, 61, 119-121,
137, 141, 142, 152, 158

Burk, P. D., 89, 90

Burkitt, F. C, 27, 31, 33

Cambridge University Library,

22
Canons of Criticism

Bengel, 88

Griesbach, 102

Lachmann, 112

Scrivener, 141

Tischendorf, 125-129

Tregelles, 132-134
Capitals in manuscripts, 20
Chapters, division into, 12
Chase, F. H., 162
Christian VIL, 98
Chrysostom, 148, 149
Clement of Rome, Epistle of, 20,

38
Clement of Alexandria, 37, 41,

148, 161
Clericus, J., 165.
Codices

Alexandrinus, 11, 19, 64

Amiatinus, 114, 131, 136

Basilianus, 14, 135

Bez», 14, 22, 62, 157-174, 176

Boernerianus, 99

Borgianus, 23

Claromoiltanus, 14, 22

m

182

INDEX

Codices,

Colbertinus, 136

Dublinensis, 23

Ephraemi, 15, 21

Friderico Augustanus, 117

Fuldensis, 113

Laudianus, 22, 167

Monacensis, 135

Montfortianus, 54, 66

Mutinensis, 135

Nanii, 135

Regius, 23

Rhodiensis, 49

Sangallensis, 23

Sinaiticus, 16, 117-121, 138

Vaticanus, 18, 71, 130, 138, 141

Zacynthius, 23, 136
Colinaeus, S., 55
Comparative Criticism, 132
Complutensian Bible, 49
Conflation, 147, 160, 167
Cook, F. C, 116, 121
Coptic Language, 34
Corssen, 169
Cozza, 19

Credner, K. A., 163, 164
Curcellaeus, S., 66
Cureton, 28
Curetonian Syriac Version, 28,

29, 32
Cursive manuscripts, 12, 13, 14
Cyprian, 41, 161
Cyril of Alexandria, 148

Damasus, Pope, 26
Davidson, S., 116
Deissmann, G. A., 128
Dclitzsch, F, 51, 53, 55
Didymus of Alexandria, 148
Diodorus of Antioch, 148
Dionysius of Alexandria, 148
Dobbin, O. T., 55
Documents,

Age of, 83

Classification of, 70, 85, 125

Genealogy of, 86
Ace. to Bengel, 89
Ace. to Griesbach, 101

Documents, genealogy of.

Ace. to Lachmann, 111, 112
Ace. to Scholz, 107
Ace. to Semler, 93
Ace. to Tischendorf , 123
Ace. to Westcott and Hort,
147
Homogeneity of, 85
Studied as wholes, 82, 84, 86
Doedes, J. I., 116
Dublin, Trinity College Library,
23,54

Eadie, J., 59
Eichhorn, J. G., 106
Elzevirs, 60
Epiphanius, 43
Erasmus, 48-55
Errors, textual, 4, 6, 81
Eusebius, 10, 11, 41

Canons of, 10, 11, 12, 17, 21, 22
Euthalius, 9, 12
Ewald, P., 164

Fell, J., 67, 69
Ferrar-group, 167, 168
Fleck, 135
Frame, J. E., 157
Fritzsche, D. F., 28, 47
Froben, 51, 53
Froude, J. A., 55

Gardthausen, V., 121

Gelasius I., 45, 105

Geneva Bible, 58

Gerhard von Maestricht, 69, 90

German Bible, 47

Goetze, I. M., 51

Green, T. S., 143

Gregory, C. R., 16, 75, 109, 115,

116, 131, 139, 144, 165
Griesbach, J. J., 96, 9^104, 162
Grotius, Hugo, 60, 63
Groups of New Testament Books,

14
Gwilliam, G. H., 33, 34

Hagenbach, C. R., 93
Hahn, 104, 115

INDEX

183

Hall, I. H., 33

Hammond, C. E., 5

Harmonies of the Grospels, 9

Harnack, A., 33

Harris, J. R., 12, 30, 31, 32, 33,

34, 55, 66, 121, 162, 163, 164,

174
Harwood, E.,96
Hefele, C. I., 51
Hermas, " Pastor " of, 16, 17
Hesychius, 44, 105, 123
Hill, J. H., 33, 45
Hippolytus, 41, 148
Hodgkin,T.,35
Holtzmann, H., 169
Home, T. H., 115
Hort, F. J. A., 7, 23, 55, 104, 154,

158, 101. 165
Hoskier, H. C, 55, 58, 62
Hug, J. L., 44, 105
Hugo, Cardinal, 12

Ignatius, 38

Inspiration, 3

Intrinsic probability, 78, 79, 81,

83,84
Irenaeus, 39, 41, 43, 148, 158, 161

Jerome, 26, 41, 44, 45, 105, 113, 114

Julicher, A., 169

Justin Martyr, 37, 41, 148, 161, 167

Kelly, W., 143
Kennedy, B. H., 144
Kennedy, H. A. A., 128
Ke0dXaia, 12, 18, 21, 22
Kipling, T., 99, 159
Knapp, 104
Koij't; cKSoais, 105

Lachmann, C, 110-115
Langton, S., 12
Laurence, R., 104
Laurentian Library, 114
Lectionaries, 15
Le Degeorge, 59
Lee, Ed., 53
Leo X., 48, 50

Lewis, Mrs. A., 29-31, 34
Lightfoot, J. B., 35, 165
Lucar, Cyril, 20, 64
Lucas Brugensis, 59, 63
Lucian of Antioch, 44, 105, 123

Mace, W., 75
Mai, Cardinal, 19
Manuscripts, 8-23
Marcion, 39, 43, 161, 167
Marker, 104

Matthaei, C. F., 96, 97, 99, 136
Mazarin Bible, 47
McClellan, J. B., 143
Methodius, 148
Mico. 130
Middleton, C, 74
Mill, J., 6,67, 68, 162
Miller, E., 61, 140
Mitchell, E. C, 41
Moldenhauer, D. G., 98, 99
Monk, J. H., 69, 75
Montanus, B., 59
Muralt, E. de, 116

Nestle, Eb., 6, 32, 36, 55, 59, 76,

90, 159, 168, 175
Nicoll, W. R., 62
Norton, A., 116

Origen, 39, 41, 44, 105, 123, 148,

149, 161
Owen, J., 66
Oxyrhyncus fragments, 176

Palimpsests, 15, 21, 23, 29, 32, 176

Palmer, E., 155

Paris, National Library of, 15, 21,

22,23
Patristic quotations, 36-41
Peshitto Version, 28, 32
Peter, Gospel of, 176
Plantin, Chr., 59
Polycarp, 38
Polyglot Bibles

Antwerp, 49, 69

Paris, 49, 60

Walton's, 64

184

INDEX

Person, R., 5

Porter, T. S., 116

Printing, application to the Bible,

46
Psalms of Solomon, 20
Punctuation of manuscripts, 9,

20,21
Purist controversy, 94

Ramsay, W. M., 168, 169
Readings, various, 6, 7, 43
Recensions, 92
Reiche, G., 116
Resch, A., 163, 164
Reuss, E., 42, 55, 66, 69
Revisers of 1881, 154
Robinson, Ed., 104
Ronsch, H., 27
Rooses, M., 59
Ropes, J. H., 164

Salmon, G., 32, 44, 104, 155, 168,

169, 172, 175
Samson, G. W., 105
Sanday, W., 36, 41, 56, 120, 155
Schaff, P., 5, 106, 118, 129, 143,

152
Scholz, J. M. A., 106-109
Schott, 104

Scribes, errors of, 4, 5, 80
Scrivener, F. H. A., 7, 23, 54, 61,

75, 109, 115, 116, 121, 122, 129,

139-142, 152, 154, 155, 159
Semler, J. S., 92, 93
Septuagint, 16, 17, 18, 20
Sepulveda, 53
Simon, Richard, 64
St. Catherine, convent of, 16, 29,

34, 117, 118
St. Gall, monastery of, 23
St. Petersburg, Imperial Library

at, 16
Stephen, Robert, 56, 60, 70, 72
Editions of New Testament, 56,

57,64
Stevens, H., 66
Stichometry, 9
Stunica, J. L., 48, 53

Tatian, 32, 33, 45, 128, 167
TertuUian, 39, 41, 43
Text,
Age of, 77, 83
Corruptions of, 41, 43
Definition of, 1
Purity of, 83
Textus Receptus, 60-62, 64, 70,

96, 104, 106, 108, 119, 138, 140,

175
Theile, 104, 115
Theodore of Mopsuestia, 148
Tholuck, A., 93
Tischendorf, C, 16, 19, 21, 42,

117-129
T^rXoi, 11
Tittmann, 104
Todd, H. J., 66
Toinard, Nich., 69
Trabaud, H., 159
Transcriptional evidence, 78, 79,

81, 83, 84, 88
Tregelles, S. P., 50, 51, 75, 108,

115, 126, 129, 130-137
Tychsen, O. G., 98, 99
Tyler, A. W., 144

Ulfilas, 35

Uncial manuscripts, 8, 12, 14

Valentinians, 39

Valesian readings, 65

Vatican Library, 19, 33, 50, 63, 67

Vercellone, 19

Versions of the New Testament,

24-35
Vienna Academy, 36
Vienna, Imperial Library of, 98
Volbeding, J. E., 129
Von Gebhardt, O., 12, 16, 104,

114, 121, 122, 129, 136, 159
Vulgate,

Alcuin, 27

Clementine, 27, 49, 70, 72

First publication of, 47

Jerome, 26, 45, 70.

Manuscripts of, collated, 71

Supremacy of, 46

INDEX

185

Walton, B., 64, 65
Walton's Polyglot, 64r-66, 68
Ward, W. H., 144
Warfield, B. B., 6
Wecheliau readings, 65
Weiss, B., 62, 157, 169-171
Wells, Ed., 69
Westcott, B. F., 45, 59
Westcott and Hort, 145-154, 171,

175
Wetstein, J. J., 21, 50, 90-92, 95.

162
Whiston, W., 159

Willems, A., 62

Wiseman, Cardinal, 25

Woide, 99

Wordsworth, White and Sanday,

27, 56, 75
Wiirttemburgian Bible Society,

62

Ximenes de Cisneros, 48

Zahn, Th., 32, 165, 169
Ziegler, 28
Zockler, O., 169

New Testament Handbooks

EDITED BY

SHAILER MATHEWS

Professor of New Testament History and Interpretation,
University of Chicago

Arrangements are made for the following volumes, and the publishers
will, on request, send notice of the issue of each volume as it appears and
each descriptive circular sent out later; such requests for information
should state whether address is permanent or not : —

The History of the Textual Criticism of the

New Testament
Prof. Marvin R. Vinxent, Professor of New Testament Exegesis,
Union Theological Seminary. \^Now ready.

Professor Vincent's contributions to the study of the New Testament rank him
among the first American exegetes. His most recent publication is " A Critical
and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles to the Philippians and to Philemon "
{Interttationai Critical Commentary'), which was preceded by a " Students'
New Testament Handbook," " Word Studies in the New Testament," and
others.

The History of the Higher Criticism of the
New Testament

Prof. Henry S. Nash, Professor of New Testament Interpretation,
Cambridge Divinity School.

Of Professor Nash's " Genesis of the Social Conscience," The Outlook said: " The
results of Professor Nash's ripe thought are presented in a luminous, compact,
and often epigrammatic style. The treatment is at once masterful and helpful,
and the book ought to be a quickening influence of the highest kind; it surely
will establish the fame of its author as a profound thinker, one from whom we
have a right to expect future inspiration of a kindred sort."

Introduction to the Books of the New Testament

Prof. B. WiSNER Bacon, Professor of New Testament Interpretation,
Yale University.

Professor Bacon's works in the field of Old Testament criticism include " The
Triple Tradition of Exodus," and " The Genesis of Genesis," a study of the
documentary sources of the books of Moses. In the field of New Testament
study he has published a number of brilliant papers, the most recent of which is
" The Autobiography of Jesus," in the American Journal of Theology.

The History of New Testament Times in Palestine

Prof. Shailer Mathews, Professor of New Testament History and
Interpretation, The University of Chicago. \^Nou> ready.

The Congregatioftalist says of Prof. Shailer Mathews's recent work, " The Social
Teaching of Jesus" : "Re-reading deepens the impression that the author is
scholarly, devout, awake to all modern thought, and yet conservative and pre-
eminently sane. If, after reading the chapters dealing with Jesus' attitude
toward man, society, the family, the state, and wealth, the reader will not agree
with us in this opinion, we greatly err as prophets."

The Life of Paul

Prof. Rush Rhees, President of the University of Rochester.

Professor Rhees is well known from his series of " Inductive Lessons " contributed
to the Sunday School Times. His " Outline of the Life of Paul," privately
printed, has had a flattering reception from New Testament scholars.

The History of the Apostolic Age

Dr. C. W, VoTAw, Instructor in New Testament Literature, The
University of Chicago.

Of Dr. Votaw's " Inductive Study of the Founding of the Christian Church," Modern
Church, Edinburgh, says: "No fuller analysis of the later books of the New
Testament could be desired, and no better programme could be offered for their
study, than that afforded in the scheme of fifty lessons on the Founding 0/ the
Christian Church, by Clyde W. Votaw. It is well adapted alike for practical
and more scholarly students of the Bible."

The Teaching of Jesus

Prof. George B. Stevens, Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale
University.

Professor Stevens's volumes upon " The Johannine Theology," " The Pauline The-
ology," as well as his recent volume on " The Theology of the New Testament^"
have made him probably the most prominent writer on biblical theology in
America. His new volume will be among the most important of his works.

The Biblical Theology of the New Testament

Prof. E. P. Gould, Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Prot-
estant Episcopal Divinity School, Philadelphia.

Professor Gould's Commentaries on the Gospel of Mark (in the International Criti-
cal Commentary) and the Epistles to the Corinthians (in the Afnerican Com-
mentary) are critical and exegetical attempts to supply those elements which
are lacking in existing works of the same general aim and scope. [In Prepara-
tion."^

The Teaching of Jesus and Modern Social Problems

Prof. Francis G. Peabody, Professor of Christian Ethics, Harvard
University.

Professor Peabody's public lectures, as well as his addresses to the students of
Harvard University, touch a wide range of modem problems. The many read-
ers of his "Mornings in the College Chapel" and his published studies upon
social and religious topics, will welcome this new work.

The History of Christian Literature until Eusebius

Prof. J. W. Platner, Professor of Early Church History, Harvard

University.

Professor Platner's work will not only treat the writings of the early Christian
writers, but will also treat of the history of the New Testament Canon.

OTHERS TO FOLLOW

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

The Social Teachings of Jesus

An Essay in Christian Sociology

BY

SHAILER MATHEWS, A.M.

Professor of New Testament History and Interpretation in
the University of Chicago

i2mo. Cloth. $1.50

Outlook :

" Such a study is sure to be useful, and if the reader sometimes feels
that the Jesus here presented has the spirit of which the world for the
most part approves rather than that which brings its persecution, he
will with renewed interest turn to the words of Jesus as narrated in the
four Gospels."

Christian Index :

" We commend Professor Mathews's book to all interested in matters
sociological, exegetical, and to all Christians who desire to know the
will of their Lord and Master."

Congregationalist :

" The author is scholarly, devoyt, awake to all modern thought, and
yet conservative and preeminently sane."

The Evangel :

" Professor Mathews gives the thoughtful reader a veritable feast in
this essay in Christian Sociology. It is well thought out and carefully
written. ... It is surely an able book, worthy of careful perusal, and
gives promise of exerting a permanent influence upon Christian thought
and Ufe."

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

Genesis of the Social Conscience.

BY

HENRY SYLVESTER NASH,

Professor in the Episcopal Theological School,
Cambridge, Mass.

THE RELATION BETWEEN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIAN-
ITY IN EUROPE AND THE SOCIAL QUESTION.

Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price $1.50.

THE OUTLOOK.

" To the world's stock of good books Professor Nash has added one
which is not the work of a clever summarizer only, but that of a clear
and forceful originator. Perhaps not since the publication of Mr. Kidd's
volume has a more genuinely popular sociological work appeared. , . .

The results of Professor Nash's ripe thought are presented in a
luminous, compact, and often epigrammatic style. The treatment is at
once masterful and helpful, and the book ought to be a quickening
influence of the highest kind; it surely will establish the fame of its
author as a profound thinker, one from whom we have a right to expect
future inspiration of a kindred sort. . . .

Through a multitude of original and brilliant metaphors, similes,
and illustrations, succeeding one another sometimes in almost bewilder-
ing number. Professor Nash leads us step by step in the retrospect of
the history of man's individualization. . . ."

NEW UNITY.

" The book is a novelty. It is an interesting experiment. It is worth
writing and therefore worth the reading. Professor Nash undertakes
to demonstrate the moral thread in history. He follows this moral line
alone. It is in order to show the rise and growth of the social con-
science. . . . The style of the book is crisp; but it is never dull."
E. P. P.

THE CRITIC.

"The pages glitter with bright sayings; there are many attractive
passages. The book is more than a tacit protest against the material-
istic explanation of history."

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY,

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
I

Ethics and Revelation

BY

HENRY S. NASH

Professor in the Episcopal Theological School at Cambridge;
Author of" Genesis of the Social Conscience"

i2mo. Cloth. $1.50

Nashville Banner :

"The author goes into the work with an earnestness,
breadth, and intelligence that gives great interest to what
he has to say."

Charleston News and Courier:

" The value and significance of Professor Nash's lectures
lie chiefly in the advanced ground which he takes up with
regard to the authority of the Bible and the Church in the
matter of rehgious and social ethics. He begins by the
assertion that the Bible marks out the road along which
conscience must travel if it would treat our life on earth
with abiding seriousness. But he is careful to show that
the Bible should be seen and regarded in the light of
history."

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Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries

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Date Due