Chapter 6

[The full details of this subject can be found in E. Miller’s edition of Scrivener’sIntroduction to the Criticism of the New Testament(George Bell, 1894); C.R. Gregory’sProlegomenato Tischendorf’sNovum Testamentum Graece, Ed. VIII. critica major(Leipzig, 1894); C.R. Gregory’sTextkritik(Leipzig, 1900); H. von Soden’sDie Schriften des neuen Testaments(Berlin, Band i., 1902-1907); F.G. Kenyon’sHandbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament(London, 1901), especially valuable for a clear account of the Papyri fragments.]

It is neither possible nor desirable to give any description of most of these MSS., but the following are, critically, the most important.

Uncials.—Codex Vaticanus(Vat. Gr, 1209), Greg. B, v. Soden δ1; an uncial MS. of the 4th century. It is written in three columns and has forty-two lines to the column. It originally contained the whole Bible, but in the New TestamentCodex Vaticanus.Heb. ix. 14, xiii. 25, 1 and 2 Tim., Tit., Philemon, Apoc., are now missing. It was written by three scribes of whom the writer of the New Testament was identified by Tischendorf as the scribe D ofא(cod. Sinaiticus). The text has been corrected by two scribes, one (theδιορθώτης) contemporary with the original writer, the other belonging to the 10th or 11th century. The latter probably also re-inked the whole of the MS. and introduced a few changes in the text, though some critics think that this was done by a monk of the 15th century who supplied the text of the lacuna in Heb. and of the Apocalypse from a MS. belonging to Bessarion. The text is the best example of the so-called Neutral Text, except in the Pauline epistles, where it has a strong “Western” element. How this MS. came to be in the Vatican is not known. It first appears in the catalogue of 1481 (Bibl. Vat. MS. Lat. 3952 f. 50), and is not in the catalogue of 1475, as is often erroneously stated on the authority of Vercellone. It was, therefore, probably acquired between the years 1475 and 1481. The problem of its earlier history is so entangled with the similar questions raised by χ that the two cannot well be discussed separately. [Phototypic editions have been issued in Rome in 1889-1890 and in 1905.]Codex Sinaiticus(St Petersburg, Imperial library), Greg.א, von Soden δ2; an uncial MS. of the 4th century. It was found in 1844 by C. Tischendorf (q.v.) in the monastery of St Catherine on Mt. Sinai, and finally acquired by theSinaiticus.tsar in 1869. It is written on thin vellum in four columns of forty-eight lines each to a page. It contained originally the whole Bible, and the New Testament is still complete. At the end it also contains the Ep. of Barnabas and theShepherdof Ilermas, unfortunately incomplete, and there was probably originally some other document between these two. The text was written, according to Tischendorf, by four scribes, of whom he identified one as also the scribe ofcod. Vaticanus. It was corrected many times, especially in the 6th century, by a scribe known asאaand in the 7th byאc. It has, in the main, a Neutral text, less mixed in the Epistles than that of B, but not so pure in the Gospels. The corrections ofאcare important, as they are based (according to a note by that scribe, at the end of Esther) on an early copy which had been corrected by Pamphilus, the disciple of Origen, friend of Eusebius and founder of a library at Caesarea.[The text ofאwas published in Tischendorf’sBibliorum codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus(vol. iv.,1862), and separately in hisNovum Testamentum Sinaiticum(1863); in 1909 it was published in collotype by the Clarendon Press, Oxford. The relations of χoto Pamphilus are studied by Bousset in “Textkritische Studien zum N.T.” (inTexte u. Untersuchungen, xi. 4).]If Tischendorf was right in identifying the scribe of B with that of part ofא, it is obvious that these MSS. probably come from the same place. He was probably wrong, but there are some indications of relationship to justify the same view. The two most probable places seem to be Caesarea and Alexandria. The case for Caesarea is that the colophon written byאcat the end of Esther, and also of Ezra, shows thatאwas then in the library of Caesarea, and that a chapter division in Acts found both inאand B can also be traced to the same library. This is a fairly strong case, but it falls short of demonstration because it cannot be shown that the MS. corrected by Pamphilus was still at Caesarea when it was used byא, and because it is not certain either that the chapter divisions in Acts were added by the original scribes, or thatאand B were at that time in their original home, or that the chapter divisions were necessarily only to be found at Caesarea. The case for Alexandria depends partly on the orthography of B, which resemblesGraeco-Coptic papyri, partly on the order of the Pauline epistles. At present, both inאand B, Hebrews is placed after 2 Thess., but inBthere is also a continuous numeration of sections throughout the epistles, according to which 1 to 58 cover Romans to Galatians, but Ephesians, the next epistle, begins with 70 instead of 59, and the omitted section numbers are found in Hebrews. Obviously, the archetype placed Hebrews between Galatians and Ephesians, but the scribe altered the order and put it between 2 Thess. and 1 Tim., though without changing the section numbers. This older order of the epistles is only found elsewhere in the Sahidic version of the New Testament, and it was probably therefore the old Egyptian or Alexandrian order. Moreover, we know from the Festal letter ofA.D.367 (according to the Greek and Syriac texts, but not the Sahidic), that Athanasius then introduced the order of the epistles which is now given inאB. This is strong evidence for the view that the archetype of B came from Alexandria or the neighbourhood, and was older than the time of Athanasius, but it scarcely proves that B itself is Alexandrian, for the order of epistles which it gives is also that adopted by the council of Laodicea inA.D.363, and may have been introduced elsewhere, perhaps in Caesarea. A further argument, sometimes based upon and sometimes in turn used to support the foregoing, is that the text ofאB represents that of Hesychius; but this is extremely doubtful (see the sectionTextual Criticismbelow).[The question of the provenance ofאand B may best be studied in J. Rendel Harris,Stichometry(Cambridge, 1893), pp. 71-89; J. Armitage Robinson, “Euthaliana,”Texts and Studies, iii. 3 (Cambridge, 1895), esp. pp. 34-43 (these more especially for the connexion with Caesarea); A. Rahfls, “Alter und Heimat der vatikanischer Bibelhandschrift,” in theNachrichten der Gesell. der Wiss. zu Göttingen(1899), vol. i. pp. 72-79; and O. von Gebhardt in a review of the last named in theTheologische Literaturzeitung(1899), col. 556.]Codex Bezae(Cambridge Univ. Nu. 2, 41), Greg. D, von Soden δ 5; an uncial Graeco-Latin MS. not later than the 6th century and probably considerably earlier. The text is written in one column to a page, the Greek on the left hand page andBezae.the Latin on the right. It was given to the university of Cambridge in 1581, but its early history is doubtful. Beza stated that it came from Lyons and had been always preserved in the monastery of St Irenaeus there. There is no reason to question Beza’sbona fides, or that the MS. was obtained by him after the sack of Lyons in 1562 by des Adrets, but there is room for doubt as to the accuracy of his belief that it had been for a long time in the same monastery. His information on this point would necessarily be derived from Protestant sources, which would not be of the highest value, and there are two pieces of evidence which show that just previously the MS. was in Italy. In the first place it is certainly identical with the MS. called η which is quoted in the margin of the 1550 edition of Robert Stephanus’ Greek Testament; this MS. according to Stephanus’ preface was collated for him by friends in Italy. In the second place it was probably used at the council of Trent in 1546 by Gul. a Prato, bishop of Clermont in Auvergne, and in the last edition of theAnnotationesBeza quotes his MS. asClaromontanus, and not asLugdunensis. These points suggest that the MS. had only been a short time at Lyons when Beza obtained it. The still earlier history of the MS. is equally doubtful. H. Quentin has produced some interesting but not convincing evidence to show that the MS. was used in Lyons in the 12th century, and Rendel Harris at one time thought that there were traces of Gallicism in the Latin, but the latter’s more recent researches go to show that the corrections and annotations varying in date between the 7th and 12th centuries point to a district which was at first predominantly Greek and afterwards became Latin. This would suit South Italy, but not Lyons. The text of this MS. is important as the oldest and best witness in a Greek MS. to the so-called “Western” text. (See the sectionTextual Criticismbelow.)[The following books and articles are important for the history, as apart from the text of the MS.Codex Bezae ... phototypice repraesentatus(Cambridge, 1899); Scrivener,Codex Bezae(Cambridge, 1864); J. Rendel Harris, “A Study ofCod. Bezae,”Texts and Studies, i. 1 (Cambridge, 1891); J. Rendel Harris,The Annotators of Cod. Bezae(London, 1901); F.E. Brightman and K. Lake, “The Italian Origin of Codex Bezae,” inJournal of Theol. Studies, April 1900, pp. 441 ff.; F.C. Burkitt, “The Date ofCodex Bezae,” in theJournal of Theol. Studies, July 1902, pp. 501 ff.; D.H. Quentin, “Le Codex Bezae à Lyon, &c.,”Revue Bénédictine, xxxiii. 1, 1906.]Codex Alexandrinus(G. M. reg. ID v.-viii.), Greg. A. von Soden 84; an uncial MS. of the 5th century. It was given by Cyril Lucar, patriarch of Constantinople, to Charles I. in 1621. It appears probable that Cyril Lucar had brought it withAlexandrinus.him from Alexandria, of which he had formerly been patriarch. A note by Cyril Lucar states that it was written by Thecla, a noble lady of Egypt, but this is probably merely his interpretation of an Arabic note of the 14th century which states that the MS. was written by Thecla, the martyr, an obviously absurd legend; another Arabic note by Athanasius (probably Athanasius III., patriarchc.1308) states that it was given to the patriarchate of Alexandria, and a Latin note of a later period dates the presentation in 1098. So far back as it can be traced it is, therefore, an Alexandrian MS., and palaeographical arguments point in the same direction. Originally, the MS. contained the whole of the Old and New Testaments, including the Psalms of Solomon in the former and 1 and 2 Clement in the latter. It has, however, suffered mutilation in a few places. Its text in the Old Testament is thought by some scholars to show signs of representing the Hesychian recension, but this view seems latterly to have lost favour with students of the Septuagint. If it be true, it falls in with the palaeographic indications and suggests an Alexandrian provenance. In the New Testament it has in the gospels a late text of Westcott and Hort’s “Syrian” type, but in the epistles there is a strongly marked “Alexandrian” element. [Cod. A was published in photographic facsimile in 1879-1880.]Codex Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus(Paris Nat. Gr. 9), Greg. C, von Soden δ 3; an uncial palimpsest (the top writing being that of Ephraem) of the 5th century. It was formerly the property of Catherine de’ Medici, and was probably broughtEphraemi Syri.from the east to Italy in the 16th century. Hort (Introduction, p. 268) has shown from a consideration of displacements in the text of the Apocalypse that it was copied from a very small MS., but this, of course, only holds good of the Apocalypse. It is usually said that this MS., like A, came originally from Egypt, but this is merely a palaeographical guess, for which there is no real evidence. Originally, it contained the whole Bible, but only sixty-four leaves of the Old Testament remain, and 145 (giving about two-thirds of the whole) of the New Testament. The character of the text is mixed with a strong “Alexandrian” element. [Published in facsimile by Tischendorf (1843). Discussed by Lagarde in hisGes. Abhandlungen, p. 94.]Codex Claromontanus(Paris Nat. Gr. 107), Greg. Dpaul, von Soden α 1026; an uncial Graeco-Latin MS. of the 6th century. This MS. also belonged to Beza, who “acquired” it from the monastery of Clermont, near Beauvais. After his deathClaromontanus.it passed through various private hands and was finally bought for the French royal library before 1656. It contains the whole of the Pauline epistles with a fewlacunae, and has a famous stichometric list of books prefixed in another hand to Hebrews. It is probably the best extant witness to the type of Greek text which was in use in Italy at an early time. It is closely connected withcod. Sangermanensis(a direct copy) at St Petersburg, Greg. Epaul, von Soden α 1027;cod. Augiensis(Cambridge, Trin. Coll. B xvii. i), Greg. Fpaul, von Soden α 1029; andcod. Boernerianus(Dresden K Bibl.), Greg. Gpaul, von Soden α 1028. [The text is published in Tischendorf’sCodex Claromontanus(1852). Its relations to EFG are best discussed in Westcott and Hort’sIntroduction, §§ 335-337.]There are no other uncials equal in importance to the above. The next most valuable are probablycod. Regiusof the 8th century at Paris, Greg. L, von Soden ε 56, containing the Gospels;cod. Laudianusof the 7th century at Oxford, Greg. E, von Soden α 1001, a Latino-Greek MS. containing the Acts;cod. Coislinianusof the 6th century in Paris, Turin, Kiev, Moscow and Mt. Atohs, Greg. Hpaul, von Soden α 1022, containing fragments of þhe Pauline epistles; andcod. Augiensisof the 9th century in Trinity College, Cambridge, Greg. Fpaul, von Soden α 1029, a Graeco-Latin MS. closely related tocod. Claromontanus. [Further details as to these MSS. with bibliographies can be found in Gregory’sProlegomenato Tischendorf’sN.T.ed. maj. viii.]Minuscules.—Very few of these are of real importance. The most valuable are the following:—1.The Ferrar Group; a group of eight MSS. known in Gregory’s notation as 13, 69, 124, 346, 543, 788, 826, 828, or in von Soden’s as ε 368, δ 505, ε 1211, ε 226, ε 257, ε 1033, ε 218, ε 219, all which, except 69, in spite of the dating implied by von Soden’s notation were probably written in the 12th century in Calabria. They have a most peculiar text of a mainly “Western” type, with some special affinities to the Old Syriac and perhaps to the Diatessaron. They are known as the Ferrar group in memory of the scholar who first published their text, and are sometimes quoted as Φ (which, however, properly is the symbol forCodex Beratinusof the Gospels), and sometimes asfam.¹³.2.Cod. 1 and its Allies; a group of four MSS. known in Gregory’s notation as 1, 118, 131, 209, and in von Soden’s as δ 50, ε 346, δ 467 and δ 457. The dating implied by the latter notation is wrong, as 1 certainly belongs to the 12th, not to the 10th century, and 118 is probably later than 209. It is sometimes quoted asfam.¹.Fam.¹ andfam.¹³ probably have a common archetype in Mark which is also represented by codd. 28 (ε 168), 565 (ε 93, quoted by Tischendorf and others as 2pe) and 700 (ε 133, quoted by Scrivener and others as 604). It seems to have had many points of agreement with the Old Syriac, but it is impossible to identify the locality to which it belonged. Other minuscules of importance are cod. 33 (δ 48) at Paris, which often agrees withאBL and is the best minuscule representative of the “Neutral” and “Alexandrian” types of text in the gospels; cod. 137 (α 364) at Milan, a valuable “Western” text of the Acts; α 78 (not in Gregory) in the Laura on Mt. Athos, a MS. of the Acts and epistles, with an early (mixed) type of text and textual comments and notes from Origen.[The text of the Ferrar group was published after Ferrar’s deathby T.K. Abbott,A Collation of Four Important MSS. of the Gospels(Dublin, 1877). It is best discussed by Rendel Harris’s books,The Origin of the Leicester Codex(1887),The Origin of the Ferrar Group(1893), andThe Ferrar Group(1900), all published at Cambridge; the text offam.¹with a discussion of its textual relations is given in K. Lake’s “Codex 1 and its Allies” (Texts and Studies, vii. 3, 1902); 565 was edited by J. Belsheim inDas Evang. des Marcus nach d. griech. Cod. Theodorae, &c. (Christiania, 1885), many corrections to which are published in the appendix to H.S. Cronin’s “Codex Purpureus,”Texts and Studies, v. 4; 700 was published by H.C. Hoskier in his collation of cod. Evan. 604, London, 1890; α 78 is edited by E. von der Goltz inTexte und Untersuchungen, N.F. ii. 4.]

Codex Sinaiticus(St Petersburg, Imperial library), Greg.א, von Soden δ2; an uncial MS. of the 4th century. It was found in 1844 by C. Tischendorf (q.v.) in the monastery of St Catherine on Mt. Sinai, and finally acquired by theSinaiticus.tsar in 1869. It is written on thin vellum in four columns of forty-eight lines each to a page. It contained originally the whole Bible, and the New Testament is still complete. At the end it also contains the Ep. of Barnabas and theShepherdof Ilermas, unfortunately incomplete, and there was probably originally some other document between these two. The text was written, according to Tischendorf, by four scribes, of whom he identified one as also the scribe ofcod. Vaticanus. It was corrected many times, especially in the 6th century, by a scribe known asאaand in the 7th byאc. It has, in the main, a Neutral text, less mixed in the Epistles than that of B, but not so pure in the Gospels. The corrections ofאcare important, as they are based (according to a note by that scribe, at the end of Esther) on an early copy which had been corrected by Pamphilus, the disciple of Origen, friend of Eusebius and founder of a library at Caesarea.

[The text ofאwas published in Tischendorf’sBibliorum codex Sinaiticus Petropolitanus(vol. iv.,1862), and separately in hisNovum Testamentum Sinaiticum(1863); in 1909 it was published in collotype by the Clarendon Press, Oxford. The relations of χoto Pamphilus are studied by Bousset in “Textkritische Studien zum N.T.” (inTexte u. Untersuchungen, xi. 4).]

If Tischendorf was right in identifying the scribe of B with that of part ofא, it is obvious that these MSS. probably come from the same place. He was probably wrong, but there are some indications of relationship to justify the same view. The two most probable places seem to be Caesarea and Alexandria. The case for Caesarea is that the colophon written byאcat the end of Esther, and also of Ezra, shows thatאwas then in the library of Caesarea, and that a chapter division in Acts found both inאand B can also be traced to the same library. This is a fairly strong case, but it falls short of demonstration because it cannot be shown that the MS. corrected by Pamphilus was still at Caesarea when it was used byא, and because it is not certain either that the chapter divisions in Acts were added by the original scribes, or thatאand B were at that time in their original home, or that the chapter divisions were necessarily only to be found at Caesarea. The case for Alexandria depends partly on the orthography of B, which resemblesGraeco-Coptic papyri, partly on the order of the Pauline epistles. At present, both inאand B, Hebrews is placed after 2 Thess., but inBthere is also a continuous numeration of sections throughout the epistles, according to which 1 to 58 cover Romans to Galatians, but Ephesians, the next epistle, begins with 70 instead of 59, and the omitted section numbers are found in Hebrews. Obviously, the archetype placed Hebrews between Galatians and Ephesians, but the scribe altered the order and put it between 2 Thess. and 1 Tim., though without changing the section numbers. This older order of the epistles is only found elsewhere in the Sahidic version of the New Testament, and it was probably therefore the old Egyptian or Alexandrian order. Moreover, we know from the Festal letter ofA.D.367 (according to the Greek and Syriac texts, but not the Sahidic), that Athanasius then introduced the order of the epistles which is now given inאB. This is strong evidence for the view that the archetype of B came from Alexandria or the neighbourhood, and was older than the time of Athanasius, but it scarcely proves that B itself is Alexandrian, for the order of epistles which it gives is also that adopted by the council of Laodicea inA.D.363, and may have been introduced elsewhere, perhaps in Caesarea. A further argument, sometimes based upon and sometimes in turn used to support the foregoing, is that the text ofאB represents that of Hesychius; but this is extremely doubtful (see the sectionTextual Criticismbelow).

[The question of the provenance ofאand B may best be studied in J. Rendel Harris,Stichometry(Cambridge, 1893), pp. 71-89; J. Armitage Robinson, “Euthaliana,”Texts and Studies, iii. 3 (Cambridge, 1895), esp. pp. 34-43 (these more especially for the connexion with Caesarea); A. Rahfls, “Alter und Heimat der vatikanischer Bibelhandschrift,” in theNachrichten der Gesell. der Wiss. zu Göttingen(1899), vol. i. pp. 72-79; and O. von Gebhardt in a review of the last named in theTheologische Literaturzeitung(1899), col. 556.]

Codex Bezae(Cambridge Univ. Nu. 2, 41), Greg. D, von Soden δ 5; an uncial Graeco-Latin MS. not later than the 6th century and probably considerably earlier. The text is written in one column to a page, the Greek on the left hand page andBezae.the Latin on the right. It was given to the university of Cambridge in 1581, but its early history is doubtful. Beza stated that it came from Lyons and had been always preserved in the monastery of St Irenaeus there. There is no reason to question Beza’sbona fides, or that the MS. was obtained by him after the sack of Lyons in 1562 by des Adrets, but there is room for doubt as to the accuracy of his belief that it had been for a long time in the same monastery. His information on this point would necessarily be derived from Protestant sources, which would not be of the highest value, and there are two pieces of evidence which show that just previously the MS. was in Italy. In the first place it is certainly identical with the MS. called η which is quoted in the margin of the 1550 edition of Robert Stephanus’ Greek Testament; this MS. according to Stephanus’ preface was collated for him by friends in Italy. In the second place it was probably used at the council of Trent in 1546 by Gul. a Prato, bishop of Clermont in Auvergne, and in the last edition of theAnnotationesBeza quotes his MS. asClaromontanus, and not asLugdunensis. These points suggest that the MS. had only been a short time at Lyons when Beza obtained it. The still earlier history of the MS. is equally doubtful. H. Quentin has produced some interesting but not convincing evidence to show that the MS. was used in Lyons in the 12th century, and Rendel Harris at one time thought that there were traces of Gallicism in the Latin, but the latter’s more recent researches go to show that the corrections and annotations varying in date between the 7th and 12th centuries point to a district which was at first predominantly Greek and afterwards became Latin. This would suit South Italy, but not Lyons. The text of this MS. is important as the oldest and best witness in a Greek MS. to the so-called “Western” text. (See the sectionTextual Criticismbelow.)

[The following books and articles are important for the history, as apart from the text of the MS.Codex Bezae ... phototypice repraesentatus(Cambridge, 1899); Scrivener,Codex Bezae(Cambridge, 1864); J. Rendel Harris, “A Study ofCod. Bezae,”Texts and Studies, i. 1 (Cambridge, 1891); J. Rendel Harris,The Annotators of Cod. Bezae(London, 1901); F.E. Brightman and K. Lake, “The Italian Origin of Codex Bezae,” inJournal of Theol. Studies, April 1900, pp. 441 ff.; F.C. Burkitt, “The Date ofCodex Bezae,” in theJournal of Theol. Studies, July 1902, pp. 501 ff.; D.H. Quentin, “Le Codex Bezae à Lyon, &c.,”Revue Bénédictine, xxxiii. 1, 1906.]

Codex Alexandrinus(G. M. reg. ID v.-viii.), Greg. A. von Soden 84; an uncial MS. of the 5th century. It was given by Cyril Lucar, patriarch of Constantinople, to Charles I. in 1621. It appears probable that Cyril Lucar had brought it withAlexandrinus.him from Alexandria, of which he had formerly been patriarch. A note by Cyril Lucar states that it was written by Thecla, a noble lady of Egypt, but this is probably merely his interpretation of an Arabic note of the 14th century which states that the MS. was written by Thecla, the martyr, an obviously absurd legend; another Arabic note by Athanasius (probably Athanasius III., patriarchc.1308) states that it was given to the patriarchate of Alexandria, and a Latin note of a later period dates the presentation in 1098. So far back as it can be traced it is, therefore, an Alexandrian MS., and palaeographical arguments point in the same direction. Originally, the MS. contained the whole of the Old and New Testaments, including the Psalms of Solomon in the former and 1 and 2 Clement in the latter. It has, however, suffered mutilation in a few places. Its text in the Old Testament is thought by some scholars to show signs of representing the Hesychian recension, but this view seems latterly to have lost favour with students of the Septuagint. If it be true, it falls in with the palaeographic indications and suggests an Alexandrian provenance. In the New Testament it has in the gospels a late text of Westcott and Hort’s “Syrian” type, but in the epistles there is a strongly marked “Alexandrian” element. [Cod. A was published in photographic facsimile in 1879-1880.]

Codex Ephraemi Syri Rescriptus(Paris Nat. Gr. 9), Greg. C, von Soden δ 3; an uncial palimpsest (the top writing being that of Ephraem) of the 5th century. It was formerly the property of Catherine de’ Medici, and was probably broughtEphraemi Syri.from the east to Italy in the 16th century. Hort (Introduction, p. 268) has shown from a consideration of displacements in the text of the Apocalypse that it was copied from a very small MS., but this, of course, only holds good of the Apocalypse. It is usually said that this MS., like A, came originally from Egypt, but this is merely a palaeographical guess, for which there is no real evidence. Originally, it contained the whole Bible, but only sixty-four leaves of the Old Testament remain, and 145 (giving about two-thirds of the whole) of the New Testament. The character of the text is mixed with a strong “Alexandrian” element. [Published in facsimile by Tischendorf (1843). Discussed by Lagarde in hisGes. Abhandlungen, p. 94.]

Codex Claromontanus(Paris Nat. Gr. 107), Greg. Dpaul, von Soden α 1026; an uncial Graeco-Latin MS. of the 6th century. This MS. also belonged to Beza, who “acquired” it from the monastery of Clermont, near Beauvais. After his deathClaromontanus.it passed through various private hands and was finally bought for the French royal library before 1656. It contains the whole of the Pauline epistles with a fewlacunae, and has a famous stichometric list of books prefixed in another hand to Hebrews. It is probably the best extant witness to the type of Greek text which was in use in Italy at an early time. It is closely connected withcod. Sangermanensis(a direct copy) at St Petersburg, Greg. Epaul, von Soden α 1027;cod. Augiensis(Cambridge, Trin. Coll. B xvii. i), Greg. Fpaul, von Soden α 1029; andcod. Boernerianus(Dresden K Bibl.), Greg. Gpaul, von Soden α 1028. [The text is published in Tischendorf’sCodex Claromontanus(1852). Its relations to EFG are best discussed in Westcott and Hort’sIntroduction, §§ 335-337.]

There are no other uncials equal in importance to the above. The next most valuable are probablycod. Regiusof the 8th century at Paris, Greg. L, von Soden ε 56, containing the Gospels;cod. Laudianusof the 7th century at Oxford, Greg. E, von Soden α 1001, a Latino-Greek MS. containing the Acts;cod. Coislinianusof the 6th century in Paris, Turin, Kiev, Moscow and Mt. Atohs, Greg. Hpaul, von Soden α 1022, containing fragments of þhe Pauline epistles; andcod. Augiensisof the 9th century in Trinity College, Cambridge, Greg. Fpaul, von Soden α 1029, a Graeco-Latin MS. closely related tocod. Claromontanus. [Further details as to these MSS. with bibliographies can be found in Gregory’sProlegomenato Tischendorf’sN.T.ed. maj. viii.]

Minuscules.—Very few of these are of real importance. The most valuable are the following:—

1.The Ferrar Group; a group of eight MSS. known in Gregory’s notation as 13, 69, 124, 346, 543, 788, 826, 828, or in von Soden’s as ε 368, δ 505, ε 1211, ε 226, ε 257, ε 1033, ε 218, ε 219, all which, except 69, in spite of the dating implied by von Soden’s notation were probably written in the 12th century in Calabria. They have a most peculiar text of a mainly “Western” type, with some special affinities to the Old Syriac and perhaps to the Diatessaron. They are known as the Ferrar group in memory of the scholar who first published their text, and are sometimes quoted as Φ (which, however, properly is the symbol forCodex Beratinusof the Gospels), and sometimes asfam.¹³.

2.Cod. 1 and its Allies; a group of four MSS. known in Gregory’s notation as 1, 118, 131, 209, and in von Soden’s as δ 50, ε 346, δ 467 and δ 457. The dating implied by the latter notation is wrong, as 1 certainly belongs to the 12th, not to the 10th century, and 118 is probably later than 209. It is sometimes quoted asfam.¹.Fam.¹ andfam.¹³ probably have a common archetype in Mark which is also represented by codd. 28 (ε 168), 565 (ε 93, quoted by Tischendorf and others as 2pe) and 700 (ε 133, quoted by Scrivener and others as 604). It seems to have had many points of agreement with the Old Syriac, but it is impossible to identify the locality to which it belonged. Other minuscules of importance are cod. 33 (δ 48) at Paris, which often agrees withאBL and is the best minuscule representative of the “Neutral” and “Alexandrian” types of text in the gospels; cod. 137 (α 364) at Milan, a valuable “Western” text of the Acts; α 78 (not in Gregory) in the Laura on Mt. Athos, a MS. of the Acts and epistles, with an early (mixed) type of text and textual comments and notes from Origen.

[The text of the Ferrar group was published after Ferrar’s deathby T.K. Abbott,A Collation of Four Important MSS. of the Gospels(Dublin, 1877). It is best discussed by Rendel Harris’s books,The Origin of the Leicester Codex(1887),The Origin of the Ferrar Group(1893), andThe Ferrar Group(1900), all published at Cambridge; the text offam.¹with a discussion of its textual relations is given in K. Lake’s “Codex 1 and its Allies” (Texts and Studies, vii. 3, 1902); 565 was edited by J. Belsheim inDas Evang. des Marcus nach d. griech. Cod. Theodorae, &c. (Christiania, 1885), many corrections to which are published in the appendix to H.S. Cronin’s “Codex Purpureus,”Texts and Studies, v. 4; 700 was published by H.C. Hoskier in his collation of cod. Evan. 604, London, 1890; α 78 is edited by E. von der Goltz inTexte und Untersuchungen, N.F. ii. 4.]

(B)The Versions.—These are generally divided into (α)primaryand (β)secondary; the former being those which represent translation made at an early period directly from Greek originals, and the latter being those which were made either from other versions or from late and unimportant Greek texts.

(α) Theprimaryversions are three—Latin, Syriac and Egyptian.Latin Versions.—1. The Old Latin. According to Jerome’s letter to Pope Damasus inA.D.384, there was in the 4th century a great variety of text in the Latin version, “Tot enim exemplaria pene quot codices.” This verdict is confirmedOld Latin.by examination of the MSS. which have pre-Hieronymian texts. It is customary to quote these by small letters of the Latin alphabet, but there is a regrettable absence of unanimity in the details of the notation. We can distinguish two main types, African and European. The African version is best represented in the gospels bycod. Bobiensis(k) of the 5th (some say 6th) century at Turin, andcod. Palatinus(e) of the 5th century at Vienna, both of which are imperfect, especially k, which, however, is far the superior in quality; in the Acts and Catholic epistles bycod. Floriacensis(f, h. or reg.) of the 6th century, a palimpsest which once belonged to the monks of Fleury, and by the so-calledspeculum(m) or collection of quotations formerly attributed to Augustine but probably connected with Spain. This scanty evidence is dated and localized as African by the quotations of Cyprian, of Augustine (not from the gospels), and of Primasius, bishop of Hadrumetum (d.c.560), from the Apocalypse. It is still a disputed point whether Tertullian’s quotations may be regarded as evidence for a Latin version or as independent translations from the Greek, nor is it certain that this version is African in an exclusive sense; it was undoubtedly used in Africa and there is no evidence that it was known elsewhere originally, but on the other hand there is no proof that it was not. The European version is best represented in the gospels bycod. Vercellensis(a) of the 5th century andcod. Veronensis(b) of the same date (the latter being the better), and by others of less importance. It is possible that a later variety of it is found incod. Monacensis(q) of the 7th century, andcod. Brixianus(f) of the 6th century, and this used to be called the Italic version, owing (as F.C. Burkitt has shown) to a misunderstanding of a remark of Augustine about the “Itala” which really refers to the Vulgate. In the Acts the European text is found incod. Gigas(g or gig) of the 13th century at Stockholm, in a Perpignan MS. of the 12th century (p), published by S. Berger, and probably incod. Laudianus(e) of the 7th century at Oxford. In the Catholic epistles it is found incod. Corbeiensis(f or ff) of the 10th century at St Petersburg. In the Pauline epistles it is doubtful whether it is extant at all, though some have found it in thecod. Claromontanus(d) and its allies. In the Apocalypse it is found incod. Gigas.The main problem in connexion with the history of the African and European versions is whether they were originally one or two. As they stand at present they are undoubtedly two, and can be distinguished both by the readings which they imply in the underlying Greek, and by the renderings which they have adopted. But there is also a greater degree of similarity between them than can be explained by accidental coincidence, and there is thus ana prioricase for the theory that one of the two is a revision of the other, or that there was an older version, now lost, which was the original of both. If one of the two is the original it is probably the African, for which there is older evidence, and of which the style both in reading and rendering seems purer. The chief argument against this is that it seems paradoxical to think of Africa rather than Rome as the home of the first Latin version; but it must be remembered that Roman Christianity was originally Greek, and that the beginnings of a Latin church in Rome seem to be surprisingly late.[Editions of Old Latin MSS. are to be found inOld Latin Biblical Texts, i.-iv. (Oxford); in Migne’sPatrologia Latina, tom. xii.; and their history is treated especially in F.C. Burkitt’s “Old Latin and the Itala” (Texts and Studies, iv. 3), as well as in all books dealing with Textual Criticism generally; other important books are Rönsch’sItala und Vulgata(1875); Corssen’sDer cyprianische Text der Acta Apostolorum(Berlin, 1892); Wordsworth and Sanday on the “Corbey S. James” inStudia Biblica, i. (1885); the article on the “Old Latin Version,” in Hastings’Dictionary of the Bible. For the textual character and importance of these versions see the sectionTextual Criticismbelow.]2. The Vulgate or Hieronymian version. To remedy the confusion produced by the variations of the Latin text Pope Damasus asked Jerome to undertake a revision, and the latter published a new text of the New Testament inA.D.384Vulgate.and the rest of the Bible probably within two years. This version gradually became accepted as the standard text, and after a time was called the “Vulgata,” the first to use this name as a title being, it is said, Roger Bacon. In the Old Testament Jerome made a new translation directly from the Hebrew, as the Old Latin was based on the LXX., but in the New Testament he revised the existing version. He did this fully and carefully in the gospels, but somewhat superficially in the epistles. He seems to have taken as the basis of his work the European version as it existed in his time, perhaps best represented bycod. Monacensis(q) of the 7th century, and by the quotations inAmbrosiaster, to whichcod. Brixianus(f) of the 6th century would be added if it were not probable that it is merely a Vulgate MS. with intrusive elements. This type of text he revised with the help of Greek MSS. of a type which does not seem to correspond exactly to any now extant, but to resemble B more closely than any others.Of Jerome’s revision we possess at least 8000 MSS., of which the earliest may be divided (in the gospels at all events) into groups connected with various countries; the most important are the Northumbrian, Irish, Anglo-Irish and Spanish, but the first named might also be called the Italian, as it represents the text of good MSS. brought from Italy in the 7th century and copied in the great schools of Wearmouth and Jarrow. One of the most important,cod. Amiatinus, was copied in this way in the time of Ceolfrid, Benedict Biscop’s successor, as a present for Pope Gregory in 716. From these MSS. the original Hieronymian text may be reconstructed with considerable certainty. The later history of the version is complicated, but fairly well known. The text soon began to deteriorate by admixture with the Old Latin, as well from the process of transcription, and several attempts at a revision were made before the invention of printing. Of these the earliest of note were undertaken in France in the 9th century by Alcuin in 801, and almost at the same time by Theodulf, bishop of Orleans (787-821). In the 11th century a similar task was undertaken by Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury (1069-1089); in the 12th century by Stephen Harding (1109), third abbot of Citeaux, and by Cardinal Nicolaus Maniacoria (1150), whose corrected Bible is preserved in the public library at Dijon. But these were not successful, and in the 13th century, instead of revisions, attempts were made to fix the text by providingcorrectoria, or lists of correct readings, which were the equivalent of critical editions; of these the chief are the Parisian, the Dominican (prepared under Hugo de S. Caro about 1240), and the Vatican. In the 15th century the history of the printed Vulgates begins. The earliest is the Mentz edition of 1452-1456 (theMazarinor “42-line” Bible), but the earliest of a critical nature were those of Robert Étienne in 1528 and 1538-1540. In 1546 the council of Trent decided that the Vulgate should be held asauthentica, and in 1590 Pope Sixtus V. published a new and authoritative edition, which was, probably at the instigation of the Jesuits, recalled by Pope Clement VIII. in 1592. In the same year, however, the same pope published another edition under the name of Sixtus. This is, according to the Bull of 1592, the authoritative edition, and has since then been accepted as such in the Latin Church. The critical edition by J. Wordsworth (bishop of Salisbury) and H.J. White probably restores the text almost to the state in which Jerome left it.[The text of the Vulgate may be studied in Wordsworth and White,Novum Testamentum Latine; Corssen,Epistula ad Galatas. Its history is best given in S. Berger’sHistoire de la Vulgate(Paris, 1893), in which a good bibliography is given on pp. xxxii.-xxxiv. The section in Kenyon’s handbook to theTextual Criticism of the New Testamentis particularly clear and full.]Syriac Versions.—1. The Old Syriac. This is only known to us at present through two MSS. of the gospels, containing theEvangelion da-Mepharreshe, or separated gospel, probably so called in distinction to Tatian’sDiatessaron. TheseOld Syriac.MSS. are known as the Curetonian and Sinaitic. The Curetonian is a MS. of the 5th century. The fragments of it which we possess are MS. Brit. Mus. addit. 14.451, which was brought in 1842 from the monastery of St. Mary in the Nitrian desert, and was edited by Cureton in 1858; and three leaves in Berlin (MS. Orient. Quart. 528) which were bought in Egypt by H. Brugsch and published by A. Roediger in 1872. It was given to the monastery of St. Mary in the 10th century, but its earlier history is unknown. It contained originally the four gospels in the order Mt., Mk., Jo., Lc. It is generally quoted as Syrcuror Syr C. The Sinaitic was discovered in 1892 by Mrs Lewis and Mrs Gibson in the library of St. Catherine’s monastery on Mt. Sinai, where it still remains, and was published in 1894 by R.L. Bensly, J. Rendel Harris and F.C. Burkitt, with an introduction by Mrs Lewis. It is a palimpsest MS., and the upper writing (lives of saints), datedA.D.778, is the work of “John, the anchorite of Beth Mari Qanon, a monastery of Ma’arrath Mesren city in the district of Antioch.” This town isbetween Antioch and Aleppo; though the monastery is otherwise unknown, it seems probable that it was the source of many of the MSS. now at Sinai. The under writing seems to be a little earlier than that of the Curetonian; it contains the gospels in the order Mt., Mc., Lc., Jo. with a fewlacunae. There is no evidence that this version was ever used in the Church services: the Diatessaron was always the normal Syriac text of the gospels until the introduction of the Peshito. But the quotations and references in Aphraates, Ephraem and the Acts of Judas Thomas show that it was known, even if not often used. It seems certain that the Old Syriac version also contained the Acts and Pauline epistles, as Aphraates and Ephraem agree in quoting a text which differs from the Peshito, but no MSS. containing this text are at present known to exist.[The text of this version is best given, with a literal English translation, in F.C. Burkitt’sEvangelion da Mepharreshe(Cambridge, 1904).]2. The Peshito (Simple) Version. This is represented by many MSS. dating from the 5th century. It has been proved almost to demonstration by F.C. Burkitt that the portion containing the gospels was made by Rabbula, bishop of EdessaPeshito.(411), to take the place of the Diatessaron, and was based on the Greek text which was at that time in current use at Antioch. The Old Testament Peshito is a much older and quite separate version. The exact limits of Rabbula’s work are difficult to define. It seems probable that the Old Syriac version did not contain the Catholic epistles, and as these are found in the Peshito they were presumably added by Rabbula. But he never added 2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John, or the Apocalypse, and the text of these books, which is sometimes bound up with the Peshito, really is that of the Philoxenian or of the Harklean version. A comparison of the Peshito with quotations in Aphraates and Ephraem shows that Rabbula revised the text of the Acts and Pauline epistles, but in the absence of MSS. of the Old Syriac for these books, it is difficult to define the extent or character of his work. The Peshito is quoted as Syr P, Pesh., and Syrsch (because Tischendorf followed the edition of Schaaf).[The best text of the Peshito is by G.H. Gwilliam,Tetraevangelium Sanctum(Oxford, 1901); its relations to Rabbula’s revision are shown by F.C. Burkitt, “S. Ephraim’s quotations from the Gospel” (Texts and Studies, vii. 2, Cambridge, 1901), which renders out of date F.H. Woods’s article on the same subject inStudia Biblica, iii. pp. 105-138.]3. The Philoxenian Version. This is known, from a note extant in MSS. of the Harklean version, to have been made inA.D.508 for Philoxenus, bishop of Hierapolis, by Polycarpus, a chorepiscopus. No MSS. of it have survived except inPhiloxenian.2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John and the Apocalypse. The four former are found in some MSS. of the Peshito, as the Philoxenian was used to supply these epistles which were not in the older version, and the Apocalypse was published in 1892 by Dr Gwynn from a MS. belonging to Lord Crawford.[This version may be studied in Isaac H. Hall’sWilliams MS.(Baltimore, 1886); in the European editions of the Syriac Bible so far as the minor Catholic epistles are concerned; inHermathena, vol. vii. (1890), pp. 281-314 (article by Gwynn); inZeitschrift für Assyriologie, xii. and xiii. (series of articles by Merx); in Gwynn’sThe Apocalypse of St John in a Syriac Version(Dublin, 1897).]4. The Harklean Version. This is a revision of the Philoxenian made in 616 by Thomas of Harkel (Heraclea), bishop of Hierapolis. It was apparently an attempt to replace the literary freedom of the Philoxenian by an extreme literalness. ItHarklean.represents in the main the text of the later Greek MSS., but it has important textual notes, and has adopted a system of asterisks and obeli from the Hexaplar LXX. The source of these notes seems to have been old MSS. from the library of the Enaton near Alexandria. The marginal readings are therefore valuable evidence for the Old Alexandrian text. This version is quoted as Syr H (and when necessary Syr Hc* or Syr Hmg) and by Tischendorf as Syrp(= Syra posterior). It should be noted that when Tischendorf speaks of Syrutrhe means the Peshito and the Harklean.[There is no satisfactory critical edition of this version, nor have the Philoxenian and the Harklean been disentangled from each other. The printed text is that published in 1778-1803 by J. White at Oxford under the titleVersio Philoxenia; for the marginal notes see esp. Westcott and Hort,Introduction, and for Acts, Pott’sAbendländische Text der Apostelgesch.(Leipzig, 1900).]5. The Palestinian or Jerusalem Version. This is a lectionary which was once thought to have come from the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, but has been shown by Burkitt to come fromPalestinian.that of Antioch. It was probably made in the 6th century in connexion with the attempts of Justinian to abolish Judaism. Usually quoted as SyrPa and by Tischendorf as Syrhier.[The text may be found in Lewis and Gibson’sThe Palestinian Syriac Lectionary(London, 1899), (Gospels), and inStudia Sinaitica, part vi. (Acts and Epistles); its origin is discussed best by F.C. Burkitt in theJournal of Theological Studies, vol. ii. (1901), pp. 174-183.]6. The Karkaphensian. This is not a version, but a Syriac “Massorah” of the New Testament,i.e.a collection of notes on the texts. Probably emanates from the monastery of the Skull. Little is known of it and it is unimportant.[See Gwilliam’s “Materials for the Criticism of the Peshito N.T.” inStudia Biblica, in. esp. pp. 60-63.]7. Tatian’sDiatessaron.This is something more than a version. It was originally a harmony of the four goepels made by Tatian, the pupil of Justin Martyr, towards the end of the 2nd century. In its original form it is no longer extant, but itTatian’s “Diatessaron.”exists in Arabic (published by Ciasca) and Latin (cod. Fuldensis) translations, in both of which the text has unfortunately been almost entirely conformed to the ordinary type. These authorities are, therefore, only available for the reconstruction of the order of the selections from the gospels, not for textual criticism properly so called. For the latter purpose, however, we can use an Armenian translation of a commentary on the Diatessaron by Ephraem, and the quotations in Aphraates. The Diatessaron appears to have been the usual form in which the gospels were read until the beginning of the 5th century, when the Peshito was put in its place, and a systematic destruction of copies of the Diatessaron was undertaken.[The Diatessaron may be studied in Zahn, “Evangelien-harmonie,” article in theProtestantische Realencyklopädie(1898); J.H. Hill,The Earliest Life of Christ(Edinburgh, 1893); J. Rendel Harris,Fragments of the Commentary of Ephraim the Syrian(London, 1895); F.C. Burkitt,Evangelion da Mepharreshe(Cambridge, 1904, vol. ii.).]Inter-relation of Syriac Versions.—The relations which subsist between the various Syriac versions remain to be discussed. There is little room for doubt that the Harklean was based on the Philoxenian, and the Philoxenian was based on the Peshito, the revision being made in each case by the help of the Greek MSS. of the day, but the relations which subsist between the Old Syriac, the Diatessaron and the Peshito are a more difficult question. There are now but few, if any, scholars who think that the Peshito is an entirely separate version, and the majority have been convinced by Burkitt and recognize (1) that the Peshito is based on a knowledge of the Old Syriac and the Diatessaron; (2) that it was made by Rabbula with the help of the contemporary Greek text of the Antiochene Church. But there is not yet the same degree of consensus as to the relations between the Old Syriac and the Diatessaron. Here it is necessary to distinguish between the original text of the Old Syriac and the existing MSS. of it—Cur. and Sin. There is no question that many passages in these show signs of Diatessaron influence, but this is only to be expected if we consider that from the end of the 2nd to the beginning of the 5th century the Diatessaron was the popular form of the gospels. A large discount has therefore to be made from the agreements between Diatessaron and Syr. S and C. Still, it is improbable that this will explain everything, and it is generally conceded that the original Diatessaron and the original Old Syriac were in some way connected. The connexion is variously explained, and efforts have been made to show on which side the dependence is to be found. The most probable theory is that of Burkitt. He thinks that the first Syriac translation was that of Tatian (c.A.D.175), who brought the Diatessaron from Rome and translated it into Syriac. There, in the last days of the 2nd century, when Serapion was bishop of Antioch (A.D.190-203), a new start was made, and a translation of the “separated Gospels” (Evangelion da Mepharreshe) was made from the MSS. which was in use at Antioch. Probably the maker of this version was partly guided, especially in his choice of renderings, by his knowledge of the Diatessaron. Nevertheless, the Diatessaron remained the more popular and was only driven out by Theodoret and Rabbula in the 5th century, when it was replaced by the Peshito. If this theory be correct the Syriac versions represent three distinct Greek texts:—(1) the 2nd-century Greek text from Rome, used by Tatian; (2) the 2nd-century Greek text from Antioch, used for the Old Syriac; (3) the 2nd-century Greek text from Antioch, used by Rabbula for the Peshito.[The best discussion of this point is in vol. ii. of Burkitt’sEvangelion da Mepharreshe.]Egyptian Versions.—Much less is known at present about the history of the Egyptian versions. They are found in various dialects of Coptic, the mutual relations of which are not yet certain, but the only ones which are preserved withCoptic.any completeness are the Bohairic, or Lower Egyptian, and Sahidic, or Upper Egyptian, though it is certain that fragments of intermediate dialects such as Middle Egyptian, Fayumic, Akhmimic and Memphitic also exist. The Bohairic has been edited by G. Horner. It is well represented, as it became the official version of the Coptic Church; its history is unknown, but from internal evidence it seems to have been made from good Greek MSS. of the type ofאBL, but the date to which this points depends largely on the general view taken of the history of the text of the New Testament. It need not, but may be earlier than the 4th century. The Sahidic is not so well preserved. G. Homer’s researches tend to show that the Greek text on which it was based was different from that represented by the Bohairic, and probably was akin to the “Western” text, perhaps of the type used by Clement of Alexandria. Unfortunately none of the MSS. seems to be good, and at present it is impossible to make very definite use of the version. It is possible that this is the oldest Coptic version, and this view is supported by the general probabilities of the spread of Christianity in Egypt.which suggest that the native church and native literature had their strength at first chiefly in the southern parts of the country. It must be noted that Westcott and Hort called the Bohairic Memphitic, and the Sahidic Thebaic, and Tischendorf called the Bohairic Coptic.[See G. Horner’sThe Coptic Version of the New Testament in the Northern Dialect(Oxford); Scrivener’sIntroduction(ed. Miller), vol. ii. pp. 91-144; and especially an article on “Egyptian Versions” in Hastings’Dictionary of the Bible, vol. i. by Forbes Robinson.](β) Among thesecondaryversions the only one of real importance is the Armenian.The Armenian Version.—The early history of this version is obscure, but it seems probable that there were two translations made in the 4th century: (1) by Mesrop with the help of Hrofanos (Rufinus?) based on a Greek text; (2) byArmenian.Sahak, based on Syriac. After the council of Ephesus (A.D.430) Mesrop and Sahak compared and revised their work with the help of MSS. from Constantinople. The general character of the version is late, but there are many places in which the Old Syriac basis can be recognized, and in the Acts and Epistles, where the Old Syriac is no longer extant, this is sometimes very valuable evidence.[See Scrivener (ed. Miller) vol. ii. pp. 148-154; Hastings’Dictionary of the Bible, article on “The Armenian Versions of the New Testament,” by F.C. Conybeare; J.A. Robinson, “Euthaliana” (Texts and Studies, iii. 3), cap. 5; on the supposed connexion of Mark xvi. 8 ff. with Aristion mentioned in this version, see esp. Swete’sThe Gospel according to St Mark(London, 1902), p. cxi.]Other secondary versions which are sometimes quoted are the Gothic, Ethiopic, Georgian, Arabic, Anglo-Saxon, Frankish and Persic. None has any real critical importance; details are given in Gregory’sProlegomenaand in Scrivener’sIntroduction.

(α) Theprimaryversions are three—Latin, Syriac and Egyptian.

Latin Versions.—1. The Old Latin. According to Jerome’s letter to Pope Damasus inA.D.384, there was in the 4th century a great variety of text in the Latin version, “Tot enim exemplaria pene quot codices.” This verdict is confirmedOld Latin.by examination of the MSS. which have pre-Hieronymian texts. It is customary to quote these by small letters of the Latin alphabet, but there is a regrettable absence of unanimity in the details of the notation. We can distinguish two main types, African and European. The African version is best represented in the gospels bycod. Bobiensis(k) of the 5th (some say 6th) century at Turin, andcod. Palatinus(e) of the 5th century at Vienna, both of which are imperfect, especially k, which, however, is far the superior in quality; in the Acts and Catholic epistles bycod. Floriacensis(f, h. or reg.) of the 6th century, a palimpsest which once belonged to the monks of Fleury, and by the so-calledspeculum(m) or collection of quotations formerly attributed to Augustine but probably connected with Spain. This scanty evidence is dated and localized as African by the quotations of Cyprian, of Augustine (not from the gospels), and of Primasius, bishop of Hadrumetum (d.c.560), from the Apocalypse. It is still a disputed point whether Tertullian’s quotations may be regarded as evidence for a Latin version or as independent translations from the Greek, nor is it certain that this version is African in an exclusive sense; it was undoubtedly used in Africa and there is no evidence that it was known elsewhere originally, but on the other hand there is no proof that it was not. The European version is best represented in the gospels bycod. Vercellensis(a) of the 5th century andcod. Veronensis(b) of the same date (the latter being the better), and by others of less importance. It is possible that a later variety of it is found incod. Monacensis(q) of the 7th century, andcod. Brixianus(f) of the 6th century, and this used to be called the Italic version, owing (as F.C. Burkitt has shown) to a misunderstanding of a remark of Augustine about the “Itala” which really refers to the Vulgate. In the Acts the European text is found incod. Gigas(g or gig) of the 13th century at Stockholm, in a Perpignan MS. of the 12th century (p), published by S. Berger, and probably incod. Laudianus(e) of the 7th century at Oxford. In the Catholic epistles it is found incod. Corbeiensis(f or ff) of the 10th century at St Petersburg. In the Pauline epistles it is doubtful whether it is extant at all, though some have found it in thecod. Claromontanus(d) and its allies. In the Apocalypse it is found incod. Gigas.

The main problem in connexion with the history of the African and European versions is whether they were originally one or two. As they stand at present they are undoubtedly two, and can be distinguished both by the readings which they imply in the underlying Greek, and by the renderings which they have adopted. But there is also a greater degree of similarity between them than can be explained by accidental coincidence, and there is thus ana prioricase for the theory that one of the two is a revision of the other, or that there was an older version, now lost, which was the original of both. If one of the two is the original it is probably the African, for which there is older evidence, and of which the style both in reading and rendering seems purer. The chief argument against this is that it seems paradoxical to think of Africa rather than Rome as the home of the first Latin version; but it must be remembered that Roman Christianity was originally Greek, and that the beginnings of a Latin church in Rome seem to be surprisingly late.

[Editions of Old Latin MSS. are to be found inOld Latin Biblical Texts, i.-iv. (Oxford); in Migne’sPatrologia Latina, tom. xii.; and their history is treated especially in F.C. Burkitt’s “Old Latin and the Itala” (Texts and Studies, iv. 3), as well as in all books dealing with Textual Criticism generally; other important books are Rönsch’sItala und Vulgata(1875); Corssen’sDer cyprianische Text der Acta Apostolorum(Berlin, 1892); Wordsworth and Sanday on the “Corbey S. James” inStudia Biblica, i. (1885); the article on the “Old Latin Version,” in Hastings’Dictionary of the Bible. For the textual character and importance of these versions see the sectionTextual Criticismbelow.]

2. The Vulgate or Hieronymian version. To remedy the confusion produced by the variations of the Latin text Pope Damasus asked Jerome to undertake a revision, and the latter published a new text of the New Testament inA.D.384Vulgate.and the rest of the Bible probably within two years. This version gradually became accepted as the standard text, and after a time was called the “Vulgata,” the first to use this name as a title being, it is said, Roger Bacon. In the Old Testament Jerome made a new translation directly from the Hebrew, as the Old Latin was based on the LXX., but in the New Testament he revised the existing version. He did this fully and carefully in the gospels, but somewhat superficially in the epistles. He seems to have taken as the basis of his work the European version as it existed in his time, perhaps best represented bycod. Monacensis(q) of the 7th century, and by the quotations inAmbrosiaster, to whichcod. Brixianus(f) of the 6th century would be added if it were not probable that it is merely a Vulgate MS. with intrusive elements. This type of text he revised with the help of Greek MSS. of a type which does not seem to correspond exactly to any now extant, but to resemble B more closely than any others.

Of Jerome’s revision we possess at least 8000 MSS., of which the earliest may be divided (in the gospels at all events) into groups connected with various countries; the most important are the Northumbrian, Irish, Anglo-Irish and Spanish, but the first named might also be called the Italian, as it represents the text of good MSS. brought from Italy in the 7th century and copied in the great schools of Wearmouth and Jarrow. One of the most important,cod. Amiatinus, was copied in this way in the time of Ceolfrid, Benedict Biscop’s successor, as a present for Pope Gregory in 716. From these MSS. the original Hieronymian text may be reconstructed with considerable certainty. The later history of the version is complicated, but fairly well known. The text soon began to deteriorate by admixture with the Old Latin, as well from the process of transcription, and several attempts at a revision were made before the invention of printing. Of these the earliest of note were undertaken in France in the 9th century by Alcuin in 801, and almost at the same time by Theodulf, bishop of Orleans (787-821). In the 11th century a similar task was undertaken by Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury (1069-1089); in the 12th century by Stephen Harding (1109), third abbot of Citeaux, and by Cardinal Nicolaus Maniacoria (1150), whose corrected Bible is preserved in the public library at Dijon. But these were not successful, and in the 13th century, instead of revisions, attempts were made to fix the text by providingcorrectoria, or lists of correct readings, which were the equivalent of critical editions; of these the chief are the Parisian, the Dominican (prepared under Hugo de S. Caro about 1240), and the Vatican. In the 15th century the history of the printed Vulgates begins. The earliest is the Mentz edition of 1452-1456 (theMazarinor “42-line” Bible), but the earliest of a critical nature were those of Robert Étienne in 1528 and 1538-1540. In 1546 the council of Trent decided that the Vulgate should be held asauthentica, and in 1590 Pope Sixtus V. published a new and authoritative edition, which was, probably at the instigation of the Jesuits, recalled by Pope Clement VIII. in 1592. In the same year, however, the same pope published another edition under the name of Sixtus. This is, according to the Bull of 1592, the authoritative edition, and has since then been accepted as such in the Latin Church. The critical edition by J. Wordsworth (bishop of Salisbury) and H.J. White probably restores the text almost to the state in which Jerome left it.

[The text of the Vulgate may be studied in Wordsworth and White,Novum Testamentum Latine; Corssen,Epistula ad Galatas. Its history is best given in S. Berger’sHistoire de la Vulgate(Paris, 1893), in which a good bibliography is given on pp. xxxii.-xxxiv. The section in Kenyon’s handbook to theTextual Criticism of the New Testamentis particularly clear and full.]

Syriac Versions.—1. The Old Syriac. This is only known to us at present through two MSS. of the gospels, containing theEvangelion da-Mepharreshe, or separated gospel, probably so called in distinction to Tatian’sDiatessaron. TheseOld Syriac.MSS. are known as the Curetonian and Sinaitic. The Curetonian is a MS. of the 5th century. The fragments of it which we possess are MS. Brit. Mus. addit. 14.451, which was brought in 1842 from the monastery of St. Mary in the Nitrian desert, and was edited by Cureton in 1858; and three leaves in Berlin (MS. Orient. Quart. 528) which were bought in Egypt by H. Brugsch and published by A. Roediger in 1872. It was given to the monastery of St. Mary in the 10th century, but its earlier history is unknown. It contained originally the four gospels in the order Mt., Mk., Jo., Lc. It is generally quoted as Syrcuror Syr C. The Sinaitic was discovered in 1892 by Mrs Lewis and Mrs Gibson in the library of St. Catherine’s monastery on Mt. Sinai, where it still remains, and was published in 1894 by R.L. Bensly, J. Rendel Harris and F.C. Burkitt, with an introduction by Mrs Lewis. It is a palimpsest MS., and the upper writing (lives of saints), datedA.D.778, is the work of “John, the anchorite of Beth Mari Qanon, a monastery of Ma’arrath Mesren city in the district of Antioch.” This town isbetween Antioch and Aleppo; though the monastery is otherwise unknown, it seems probable that it was the source of many of the MSS. now at Sinai. The under writing seems to be a little earlier than that of the Curetonian; it contains the gospels in the order Mt., Mc., Lc., Jo. with a fewlacunae. There is no evidence that this version was ever used in the Church services: the Diatessaron was always the normal Syriac text of the gospels until the introduction of the Peshito. But the quotations and references in Aphraates, Ephraem and the Acts of Judas Thomas show that it was known, even if not often used. It seems certain that the Old Syriac version also contained the Acts and Pauline epistles, as Aphraates and Ephraem agree in quoting a text which differs from the Peshito, but no MSS. containing this text are at present known to exist.

[The text of this version is best given, with a literal English translation, in F.C. Burkitt’sEvangelion da Mepharreshe(Cambridge, 1904).]

2. The Peshito (Simple) Version. This is represented by many MSS. dating from the 5th century. It has been proved almost to demonstration by F.C. Burkitt that the portion containing the gospels was made by Rabbula, bishop of EdessaPeshito.(411), to take the place of the Diatessaron, and was based on the Greek text which was at that time in current use at Antioch. The Old Testament Peshito is a much older and quite separate version. The exact limits of Rabbula’s work are difficult to define. It seems probable that the Old Syriac version did not contain the Catholic epistles, and as these are found in the Peshito they were presumably added by Rabbula. But he never added 2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John, or the Apocalypse, and the text of these books, which is sometimes bound up with the Peshito, really is that of the Philoxenian or of the Harklean version. A comparison of the Peshito with quotations in Aphraates and Ephraem shows that Rabbula revised the text of the Acts and Pauline epistles, but in the absence of MSS. of the Old Syriac for these books, it is difficult to define the extent or character of his work. The Peshito is quoted as Syr P, Pesh., and Syrsch (because Tischendorf followed the edition of Schaaf).

[The best text of the Peshito is by G.H. Gwilliam,Tetraevangelium Sanctum(Oxford, 1901); its relations to Rabbula’s revision are shown by F.C. Burkitt, “S. Ephraim’s quotations from the Gospel” (Texts and Studies, vii. 2, Cambridge, 1901), which renders out of date F.H. Woods’s article on the same subject inStudia Biblica, iii. pp. 105-138.]

3. The Philoxenian Version. This is known, from a note extant in MSS. of the Harklean version, to have been made inA.D.508 for Philoxenus, bishop of Hierapolis, by Polycarpus, a chorepiscopus. No MSS. of it have survived except inPhiloxenian.2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John and the Apocalypse. The four former are found in some MSS. of the Peshito, as the Philoxenian was used to supply these epistles which were not in the older version, and the Apocalypse was published in 1892 by Dr Gwynn from a MS. belonging to Lord Crawford.

[This version may be studied in Isaac H. Hall’sWilliams MS.(Baltimore, 1886); in the European editions of the Syriac Bible so far as the minor Catholic epistles are concerned; inHermathena, vol. vii. (1890), pp. 281-314 (article by Gwynn); inZeitschrift für Assyriologie, xii. and xiii. (series of articles by Merx); in Gwynn’sThe Apocalypse of St John in a Syriac Version(Dublin, 1897).]

4. The Harklean Version. This is a revision of the Philoxenian made in 616 by Thomas of Harkel (Heraclea), bishop of Hierapolis. It was apparently an attempt to replace the literary freedom of the Philoxenian by an extreme literalness. ItHarklean.represents in the main the text of the later Greek MSS., but it has important textual notes, and has adopted a system of asterisks and obeli from the Hexaplar LXX. The source of these notes seems to have been old MSS. from the library of the Enaton near Alexandria. The marginal readings are therefore valuable evidence for the Old Alexandrian text. This version is quoted as Syr H (and when necessary Syr Hc* or Syr Hmg) and by Tischendorf as Syrp(= Syra posterior). It should be noted that when Tischendorf speaks of Syrutrhe means the Peshito and the Harklean.

[There is no satisfactory critical edition of this version, nor have the Philoxenian and the Harklean been disentangled from each other. The printed text is that published in 1778-1803 by J. White at Oxford under the titleVersio Philoxenia; for the marginal notes see esp. Westcott and Hort,Introduction, and for Acts, Pott’sAbendländische Text der Apostelgesch.(Leipzig, 1900).]

5. The Palestinian or Jerusalem Version. This is a lectionary which was once thought to have come from the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, but has been shown by Burkitt to come fromPalestinian.that of Antioch. It was probably made in the 6th century in connexion with the attempts of Justinian to abolish Judaism. Usually quoted as SyrPa and by Tischendorf as Syrhier.

[The text may be found in Lewis and Gibson’sThe Palestinian Syriac Lectionary(London, 1899), (Gospels), and inStudia Sinaitica, part vi. (Acts and Epistles); its origin is discussed best by F.C. Burkitt in theJournal of Theological Studies, vol. ii. (1901), pp. 174-183.]

6. The Karkaphensian. This is not a version, but a Syriac “Massorah” of the New Testament,i.e.a collection of notes on the texts. Probably emanates from the monastery of the Skull. Little is known of it and it is unimportant.

[See Gwilliam’s “Materials for the Criticism of the Peshito N.T.” inStudia Biblica, in. esp. pp. 60-63.]

7. Tatian’sDiatessaron.This is something more than a version. It was originally a harmony of the four goepels made by Tatian, the pupil of Justin Martyr, towards the end of the 2nd century. In its original form it is no longer extant, but itTatian’s “Diatessaron.”exists in Arabic (published by Ciasca) and Latin (cod. Fuldensis) translations, in both of which the text has unfortunately been almost entirely conformed to the ordinary type. These authorities are, therefore, only available for the reconstruction of the order of the selections from the gospels, not for textual criticism properly so called. For the latter purpose, however, we can use an Armenian translation of a commentary on the Diatessaron by Ephraem, and the quotations in Aphraates. The Diatessaron appears to have been the usual form in which the gospels were read until the beginning of the 5th century, when the Peshito was put in its place, and a systematic destruction of copies of the Diatessaron was undertaken.

[The Diatessaron may be studied in Zahn, “Evangelien-harmonie,” article in theProtestantische Realencyklopädie(1898); J.H. Hill,The Earliest Life of Christ(Edinburgh, 1893); J. Rendel Harris,Fragments of the Commentary of Ephraim the Syrian(London, 1895); F.C. Burkitt,Evangelion da Mepharreshe(Cambridge, 1904, vol. ii.).]

Inter-relation of Syriac Versions.—The relations which subsist between the various Syriac versions remain to be discussed. There is little room for doubt that the Harklean was based on the Philoxenian, and the Philoxenian was based on the Peshito, the revision being made in each case by the help of the Greek MSS. of the day, but the relations which subsist between the Old Syriac, the Diatessaron and the Peshito are a more difficult question. There are now but few, if any, scholars who think that the Peshito is an entirely separate version, and the majority have been convinced by Burkitt and recognize (1) that the Peshito is based on a knowledge of the Old Syriac and the Diatessaron; (2) that it was made by Rabbula with the help of the contemporary Greek text of the Antiochene Church. But there is not yet the same degree of consensus as to the relations between the Old Syriac and the Diatessaron. Here it is necessary to distinguish between the original text of the Old Syriac and the existing MSS. of it—Cur. and Sin. There is no question that many passages in these show signs of Diatessaron influence, but this is only to be expected if we consider that from the end of the 2nd to the beginning of the 5th century the Diatessaron was the popular form of the gospels. A large discount has therefore to be made from the agreements between Diatessaron and Syr. S and C. Still, it is improbable that this will explain everything, and it is generally conceded that the original Diatessaron and the original Old Syriac were in some way connected. The connexion is variously explained, and efforts have been made to show on which side the dependence is to be found. The most probable theory is that of Burkitt. He thinks that the first Syriac translation was that of Tatian (c.A.D.175), who brought the Diatessaron from Rome and translated it into Syriac. There, in the last days of the 2nd century, when Serapion was bishop of Antioch (A.D.190-203), a new start was made, and a translation of the “separated Gospels” (Evangelion da Mepharreshe) was made from the MSS. which was in use at Antioch. Probably the maker of this version was partly guided, especially in his choice of renderings, by his knowledge of the Diatessaron. Nevertheless, the Diatessaron remained the more popular and was only driven out by Theodoret and Rabbula in the 5th century, when it was replaced by the Peshito. If this theory be correct the Syriac versions represent three distinct Greek texts:—(1) the 2nd-century Greek text from Rome, used by Tatian; (2) the 2nd-century Greek text from Antioch, used for the Old Syriac; (3) the 2nd-century Greek text from Antioch, used by Rabbula for the Peshito.

[The best discussion of this point is in vol. ii. of Burkitt’sEvangelion da Mepharreshe.]

Egyptian Versions.—Much less is known at present about the history of the Egyptian versions. They are found in various dialects of Coptic, the mutual relations of which are not yet certain, but the only ones which are preserved withCoptic.any completeness are the Bohairic, or Lower Egyptian, and Sahidic, or Upper Egyptian, though it is certain that fragments of intermediate dialects such as Middle Egyptian, Fayumic, Akhmimic and Memphitic also exist. The Bohairic has been edited by G. Horner. It is well represented, as it became the official version of the Coptic Church; its history is unknown, but from internal evidence it seems to have been made from good Greek MSS. of the type ofאBL, but the date to which this points depends largely on the general view taken of the history of the text of the New Testament. It need not, but may be earlier than the 4th century. The Sahidic is not so well preserved. G. Homer’s researches tend to show that the Greek text on which it was based was different from that represented by the Bohairic, and probably was akin to the “Western” text, perhaps of the type used by Clement of Alexandria. Unfortunately none of the MSS. seems to be good, and at present it is impossible to make very definite use of the version. It is possible that this is the oldest Coptic version, and this view is supported by the general probabilities of the spread of Christianity in Egypt.which suggest that the native church and native literature had their strength at first chiefly in the southern parts of the country. It must be noted that Westcott and Hort called the Bohairic Memphitic, and the Sahidic Thebaic, and Tischendorf called the Bohairic Coptic.

[See G. Horner’sThe Coptic Version of the New Testament in the Northern Dialect(Oxford); Scrivener’sIntroduction(ed. Miller), vol. ii. pp. 91-144; and especially an article on “Egyptian Versions” in Hastings’Dictionary of the Bible, vol. i. by Forbes Robinson.]

(β) Among thesecondaryversions the only one of real importance is the Armenian.

The Armenian Version.—The early history of this version is obscure, but it seems probable that there were two translations made in the 4th century: (1) by Mesrop with the help of Hrofanos (Rufinus?) based on a Greek text; (2) byArmenian.Sahak, based on Syriac. After the council of Ephesus (A.D.430) Mesrop and Sahak compared and revised their work with the help of MSS. from Constantinople. The general character of the version is late, but there are many places in which the Old Syriac basis can be recognized, and in the Acts and Epistles, where the Old Syriac is no longer extant, this is sometimes very valuable evidence.

[See Scrivener (ed. Miller) vol. ii. pp. 148-154; Hastings’Dictionary of the Bible, article on “The Armenian Versions of the New Testament,” by F.C. Conybeare; J.A. Robinson, “Euthaliana” (Texts and Studies, iii. 3), cap. 5; on the supposed connexion of Mark xvi. 8 ff. with Aristion mentioned in this version, see esp. Swete’sThe Gospel according to St Mark(London, 1902), p. cxi.]

Other secondary versions which are sometimes quoted are the Gothic, Ethiopic, Georgian, Arabic, Anglo-Saxon, Frankish and Persic. None has any real critical importance; details are given in Gregory’sProlegomenaand in Scrivener’sIntroduction.

(C)Quotations in Patristic Writings.—The value of this source of evidence lies in the power which it gives us to date and localize texts. Its limitations are found in the inaccuracy of quotation of the writers, and often in the corrupt condition of their text. This latter point especially affects quotations which later scribes frequently forced into accord with the text they preferred.

All writers earlier than the 5th century are valuable, but particularly important are the following groups:—(1) Greek writers in the West, especially Justin Martyr, Tatian, Marcion, Irenaeus and Hippolytus; (2) Latin writers in Italy, especially Novatian, the author of thede Rebaptismateand Ambrosiaster; (3) Latin writers in Africa, especially Tertullian and Cyprian; (4) Greek writers in Alexandria, especially Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius and Cyril; (5) Greek writers in the East, especially Methodius of Lycia and Eusebius of Caesarea; (6) Syriac writers, especially Aphraates and Ephraem; it is doubtful whether the Diatessaron of Tatian ought to be reckoned in this group or in (1). None of these groups bears witness to quite the same text, nor can all of them be identified with the texts found in existing MSS. or versions, but it may be said with some truth that group 2 used the European Latin version, group 3 the African Latin, and group 6 the Diatessaron in the gospels and the Old Syriac elsewhere, while group I has much in common withcod. Bezae, though the difference is here somewhat greater. In group 4 the situation is more complex; Clement used a text which has most in common withcod. Bezae, but is clearly far from identical; Origen in the main has the text ofאB; Athanasius a somewhat later variety of the same type, while Cyril has the so-called Alexandrian text found especially in L. Group 4 has a peculiar text which cannot be identified with any definite group of MSS. For further treatment of the importance of this evidence see the sectionTextual Criticismbelow.[There is as yet but little satisfactory literature on this subject. Outstanding work is P.M. Barnard’s “Clement of Alexandria’s Biblical Text” (Texts and Studies, v. 5), 1899; Harnack’s “Eine Schrift Novatians,” inTexte und Untersuchungen, xiii. 4; Souter’s “Ambrosiaster” inTexts and Studies, vii. 4; the Society of Historical Theology’sNew Testament in the Apostolic Fathers; an article by Kostschau, “Bibelcitate bei Origenes,” in theZeitschrift f. wissenschaftliche Theologie(1900), pp. 321-378; and on the general subject especially Nestle’sEinführung in das griechische Neue Testament(Göttingen, 1909), pp. 159-167.]

[There is as yet but little satisfactory literature on this subject. Outstanding work is P.M. Barnard’s “Clement of Alexandria’s Biblical Text” (Texts and Studies, v. 5), 1899; Harnack’s “Eine Schrift Novatians,” inTexte und Untersuchungen, xiii. 4; Souter’s “Ambrosiaster” inTexts and Studies, vii. 4; the Society of Historical Theology’sNew Testament in the Apostolic Fathers; an article by Kostschau, “Bibelcitate bei Origenes,” in theZeitschrift f. wissenschaftliche Theologie(1900), pp. 321-378; and on the general subject especially Nestle’sEinführung in das griechische Neue Testament(Göttingen, 1909), pp. 159-167.]

(K. L.)

3.Textual Criticism.

The problem which faces the textual critic of the New Testament is to reconstruct the original text from the materials supplied by the MSS., versions, and quotations in early writers, which have been described in the preceding section on theapparatus criticus. His object, therefore, is to discover and remove the various corruptions which have crept into the text, by the usual methods of the textual critic—the collection of material, the grouping of MSS. and other authorities, the reconstruction of archetypes, and the consideration of transcriptional and intrinsic probability. No book, however, presents such a complicated problem or such a wealth of material for the textual critic.

In a certain wide sense the textual criticism of the New Testament began as soon as men consciously made recensions and versions, and in this sense Origen, Jerome, Augustine and many other ecclesiastical writers might be regarded as textual critics. But in practice it is general, and certainly convenient, to regard their work rather as material for criticism, and to begin the history of textual criticism with the earliest printed editions which sought to establish a standard Greek Text. It is, of course, impossible here to give an account of all these, but the following may fairly be regarded as the epoch-making books from the beginning to the present time.

TheComplutensian.—The first printed text of the Greek Testament is known as the Complutensian, because it was made under the direction of Cardinal Ximenes of Alcalá (Lat.Complutum). It was printed in 1514, and is thus the first printed text, but is not the first published, as it was not issued until 1522. It is not known what MSS. Ximenes used, but it is plain from the character of the text that they were not of great value. His text was reprinted in 1569 by Chr. Plantin at Antwerp.Erasmus.—The firstpublishedtext was that of Erasmus. It was undertaken at the request of Joannes Froben (Frobenius), the printer of Basel, who had heard of Cardinal Ximenes’ project and wished to forestall it. In this he was successful, as it was issued in 1516. It was based chiefly on MSS. at Basel, of which the only really good one (cod. Evan. 1) was seldom followed. Erasmus issued new editions in 1519, 1522, 1527 and 1535, and the Aldine Greek Testament, printed at Venice in 1518, is a reproduction of the first edition.Stephanus.—Perhaps the most important of all early editions were those of Robert Étienne, or Stephanus, of Paris and afterwards of Geneva. His two first editions (1546, 1549) were based on Erasmus, the Complutensian, and collations of fifteen Greek MSS. These are 16mo volumes, but the third and most important edition (1550) was a folio with a revised text. It is this edition which is usually referred to asthetext of Stephanus. A fourth edition (in 16mo) published at Geneva in 1551 is remarkable for giving the division of the text into verses which has since been generally adopted.Beza.—Stephanus’ work was continued by Theodore Beza, who published ten editions between 1565 and 1611. They did not greatly differ from the 1550 edition of Stephanus, but historically are important for the great part they played in spreading a knowledge of the Greek text, and as supplying the text which the Elzevirs made the standard on the continent.Elzevir.—The two brothers, Bonaventura and Abraham Elzevir, published two editions at Leiden in 1624 and 1633, based chiefly on Beza’s text. In the preface to the second edition the first is referred to as “textum... nunc ab omnibus receptum,” and this is the origin of the name “Textus Receptus” (or T.R.) often given to the ordinary Greek Text. The Elzevir text has formed the basis of all non-critical editions on the continent, but in England the 1550 edition of Stephanus has been more generally followed. The importance of both the Stephanus and Elzevir editions is that they formed a definite text for the purposes of comparison, and so prepared the way for the next stage, in which scholars busied themselves with the investigation and collation of other MSS.Walton’s Polyglot.—The first to begin this work was Brian Walton, bishop of Chester, who published in 1657 in the 5th and 6th volumes of his “polyglot” Bible the text of Stephanus (1550) with the readings of fifteen new MSS. besides those employed by Stephanus himself. The collations were made for him by Archbishop Ussher.John Fell.—In 1675 John Fell, dean of Christ Church, published the Elzevir text with an enlarged apparatus, but even more important was the help and advice which he gave to the next important editor—Mill.John Mill, of Queen’s College, Oxford, influenced by the advice, and supported by the purse of John Fell until the latter’s death, published in 1707 a critical edition of the New Testament which has still a considerable value for the scholar. It gives the text of Stephanus (1550) with collations of 78 MSS., besides those of Stephanus, the readings of the Old Latin, so far as was then known, the Vulgate and Peshito, together with full and valuable prolegomena.Bentley.—A little later Richard Bentley conceived the idea that it would be possible to reconstruct the original text of the New Testament by a comparison of the earliest Greek and Latin sources; he began to collect material for this purpose, and issued a scheme entitled “Proposals for Printing” in 1720, but though he amassed many notes nothing was ever printed.W. Mace.—Fairness forbids us to omit the name of William (or Daniel?) Mace, a Presbyterian minister who publishedThe New Testament in Greek and English, in 2 vols. in 1729, and really anticipated many of the verdicts of later critics. He was, however, not in a position to obtain recognition, and his work has been generally overlooked.J.J. Wetstein, one of Bentley’s assistants, when living in Basel in 1730, published “Prolegomena” to the Text, and in 1751-1752 (at Amsterdam) the text of Stephanus with enlarged Prolegomena and apparatus criticus. His textual views were peculiar; he preferred to follow late MSS. on the ground that all the earlier copies had been contaminated by the Latin—almost reversing the teaching of Bentley. His edition is historically very important as it introduced the system of notation which, in the amplified form given to it by Gregory, is still in general use.J.A. Bengel, abbot of Alpirspach (a Lutheran community), published in 1734, at Tübingen, an edition of the New Testament which marks the beginning of a new era. For the first time an attempt was made to group the MSS., which were divided into African and Asiatic. The former group contained the few old MSS., the latter the many late MSS., and preference was given to the African. This innovation has been followed by almost all critics since Bengel’s time, and it was developed by Griesbach.J.J. Griesbach, a pupil at Halle of J.S. Semler (who in 1764 reprinted Wetstein’s Prolegomena, and in comments of his own took over and expounded Bengel’s views), collated many MSS., and distinguished three main groups:—the Alexandrian or Origenian (which roughly corresponded to Bengel’s African), found in ABCL, the Egyptian version and Origen; the Western, found in D and Latin authorities; and the Constantinopolitan (Bengel’s Asiatic), found in the later MSS. and in Byzantine writers. His view was that the last group was the least valuable; but, except when internal evidence forbade (and he thought that it frequently did so), he followed the text found in any two groups against the third. His first edition was published in 1774-1775, his second and improved edition in 1796 (vol. i.) and 1806. For the second edition he had the advantage not merely of his own collection of material (published chiefly in hisSymbolae Criticae, 1785-1793), but also of many collations by Birch, Matthaei and Adler, and an edition with new collations by F.K. Alter.J.L. Hug, Roman Catholic professor of theology at Freiburg, published (Stuttgart and Tübingen) hisEinleitung in die Schriften des N. T.(1808); he is chiefly remarkable for the curious way in which he introduced many critical ideas which were not appreciated at the time but have since been revived. He accepted Griesbach’s views as a whole, but starting from the known recensions of the LXX. he identified Griesbach’s Alexandrian text with the work of Hesychius, and the Constantinopolitan with that of Lucian, while he described Griesbach’s Western text as theκοινὴ ἔκδοσις.J.M.A. Scholz, a pupil of Hug, inspected and partially collated nearly a thousand MSS. and assigned numbers to them which have since been generally adopted. His work is for this reason important, but is unfortunately inaccurate.K. Lachmann, the famous classical scholar, opened a new era in textual criticism in 1842-1850, in hisN.T. Graece et Latine. In this great book a break was made for the first time with the traditional text and the evidence of the late MSS., and an attempt was made to reconstruct the text according to the oldest authorities. This was a great step forward, but unfortunately it was accompanied by a retrogression to the pre-Griesbachian (or rather pre-Bengelian) days; for Lachmann rejected the idea of grouping MSS., and having selected a small number of the oldest authorities undertook always to follow the reading of the majority.C. Tischendorf, the most famous follower of Lachmann, besides editions of many MSS. and the collation of many more, published between 1841 and 1869-1872 eight editions of the New Testament with full critical notes. The eighth edition, which for the first time contained the readings ofא, has not yet been equalled, and together with the Prolegomena, supplied by C.R. Gregory after Tischendorf’s death, is the standard critical edition which is used by scholars all over the world. At the same time it must be admitted that it gradually became antiquated. Fresh collations of MSS., and especially fresh discoveries and investigations into the text of the versions and Fathers, have given much new information which entirely changed the character of the evidence for many readings, and rendered a new edition necessary (seeSoden, H. Von). As a collector and publisher of evidence Tischendorf was marvellous, but as an editor of the text he added little to the principles of Lachmann, and like Lachmann does not seem to have appreciated the value of the Griesbachian system of grouping MSS.S.P. Tregelles, an English scholar, like Tischendorf, spent almost his whole life in the collection of material, and published a critical edition, based on the earliest authorities, at intervals between 1857 and 1872. His work was eclipsed by Tischendorf’s, and his critical principles were almost the same as the German scholar’s, so that his work has obtained less recognition than would otherwise have been the case. Tischendorf and Tregelles finished the work which Lachmann began. They finally exploded the pretensions of theTextus Receptusto be the original text; but neither of them gave any explanation of the relations of the later text to the earlier, nor developed Griesbach’s system of dealing with groups of MSS. rather than with single copies.B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort(commonly quoted as WH), the Cambridge scholars, supplied the deficiencies of Lachmann, and without giving up the advantages of his system, and its development by Tischendorf, brought back the study of the text of the New Testament to the methods of Griesbach. Their great work was published in 1881 under the title ofThe New Testament in the Original Greek. Their view of the history of the text is that a comparison of the evidence shows that, while we can distinguish more than one type of text, the most clearly discernible of all the varieties is first recognizable in the quotations of Chrysostom, and is preserved in almost all the later MSS. Though found in so great a number of witnesses, this type of text is shown not to be the earliest or best by the evidence of all the oldest MS. versions and Fathers, as well as by internal evidence. Moreover, a comparison with the earlier sources of evidence shows that it was built up out of previously existing texts. This is proved by the “conflations” which are found in it. For instance in Mark ix. 38 the later MSS. readὃς οὐκ ἀκολουθεῖ ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐκωλύσαμεν αὐτὸν ὄτι οὐκ ἀκολουθεῖ ἡμῖν, a clumsy sentence which is clearly made up out of two earlier readings,καὶ ἐκωλύομεν αὐτὸν ὃτι οὐκ ἠκολούθει ἡμῖν, found inאBCL boh., andὃς οὐκ ἀκολουθεῖ μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν, καὶ ἐκωλύομεν αὐτόν, found in DXfam.¹,fam.¹³ 28 latt. It is impossible, in face of the fact that the evidence of the oldest witnesses of all sorts is constantly opposed to the longer readings, to doubt that WH were right in arguing that these phenomena prove that the later text was made up by a process of revision and conflation of the earlier forms. Influenced by the use of the later text by Chrysostom, WH called it the Syrian or Antiochene text, and refer to the revision which produced it as the Syrian revision. They suggested that it might perhaps be attributed to Lucian, who is known to have made a revision of the text of the LXX. The earlier texts which were used for the Syrian revision may, according to WH, be divided into three:—(1) the Western text, used especially by Latin writers, and found also incod. Bezaeand in Syr C; (2) the Alexandrine text used by Cyril of Alexandria and found especially in CL Ξ 33; and (3) a text which differs from both the above mentioned and is therefore called by WH the Neutral text, found especially inאB and the quotations of Origen. Of these three types WH thought that the Neutral was decidedly the best. The Alexandrian was clearly a literary recension of it, and WH strove to show that the Western was merely due to the non-literary efforts of scribes in other parts to improve the narrative. The only exception which they allowed to this general rule was in the case of certain passages, especially in the last chapters of Luke, where the “Western” authorities omit words which are found in the Neutral and Alexandrian texts. Their reason was that omission seems to be contrary to the genius of the Western text, and that it is therefore probable that these passages represent interpolations made in the text on the Neutral side after the division between it and the Western. They might be called Neutral interpolations, but WH preferred the rather clumsy expression “Western non-interpolations.” Having thus decided that the Neutral text was almost always right, it only remained for WH to choose between the various authorities which preserved this type. They decided that the two best authorities wereאand B, and that when these differed the reading of B, except when obviously an accidental blunder, was probably right. The great importance of this work of WH lies in the facts that it not merely condemns but explains the late Antiochene text, and that it attempts to consider in an objective manner all the existing evidence and to explain it historically and genealogically. Opinions differ as to the correctness of the results reached by WH, but there is scarcely room for doubt that as an example of method their work is quite unrivalled at present and is the necessary starting-point for all modern investigations.Since Westcott and Hort no work of the same importance appeared up till 1909. Various useful texts have been issued, among which those of Nestle (Novum Testamentum Graece, Stuttgart, 1904), based on a comparison of the texts of Tischendorf, WH and Weiss, and of Baljon (Novum Testamentum Graece, Groningen, 1898), are the best. The only serious attempt as yet published to print a complete text independently of other editors is that of B. Weiss (Das Neue Testament, Leipzig, 1894-1900), but the method followed in this is so subjective and pays so little attention to the evidence of the versions that it is not likely to be permanently important. The text reached is not widely different from that of WH. The new work in course of preparation by von Soden at Berlin, which promises to take the place of Tischendorf’s edition, must certainly do this so far as Greek MSS. are concerned, for the whole field has been reinvestigated by a band of assistants who have grouped and collated specimens of all known MSS.Besides these works the chief efforts of textual critics since WH have been directed towards the elucidation of minor problems, and the promulgation of certain hypotheses to explain the characteristics either of individual MSS. or of groups of MSS. Among these the works of Sanday, Corssen, Wordsworth, White, Burkitt and Harris on the history of the Old Latin and Vulgate, and especially the work of Burkitt on the Old Syriac, have given most light on the subject. These lines of research have been described in the preceding section on theapparatus criticus. Other noteworthy and interesting, though in the end probably less important, work has been done by Blass, Bousset, Schmidtke, Rendel Harris and Chase. The outline of the chief works is as follows:—F. Blass.—In his various books on the Acts and third gospel Blass has propounded a new theory as to the “Western” text. He wasstruck by the fact that neither the Western can be shown to be derived from the Neutral, nor the Neutral from the Western. He therefore conceived the idea that perhaps both texts were Lucan, and represented two recensions by the original writer, and he reconstructed the history as follows. Luke wrote the first edition of the Gospel for Theophilus from Caesarea; this is the Neutral text of the Gospel. Afterwards he went to Rome and there revised the text of the Gospel and reissued it for the Church in that city; this is the Western (or, as Blass calls it, Roman) text of the Gospel. At the same time he continued his narrative for the benefit of the Roman Church, and published the Western text of the Acts. Finally he revised the Acts and sent a copy to Theophilus; this is the Neutral text of the Acts. This ingenious theory met with considerable approval when it was first advanced, but it has gradually been seen that “Western” text does not possess the unity which Blass’s theory requires it to have. Still, Blass’s textual notes are very important, and there is a mass of material in his books.Bousset and Schmidtke.—These two scholars have done much work in trying to identify smaller groups of MSS. with local texts. Bousset has argued that the readings in the Pauline epistles found inאcH and a few minuscules represent the text used by Pamphilus, and on the whole this view seems to be highly probable. Another group which Bousset has tried to identify is that headed by B, which he connects with the recension of Hesychius, but this theory, though widely accepted in Germany, does not seem to rest on a very solid basis. To some extent influenced by and using Bousset’s results, Schmidtke has tried to show that certain small lines in the margin of B point to a connexion between that MS. and a Gospel harmony, which, by assuming that the text of B is Hesychian, he identifies with that of Ammonius. If true, this is exceedingly important. Nestle, however, and other scholars think that the lines in B are merely indications of a division of the text into sense-paragraphs and have nothing to do with any harmony.Rendel HarrisandChase.—Two investigations, which attracted much notice when they were published, tried to explain the phenomena of the Western text as due to retranslation from early versions into Greek. Rendel Harris argued for the influence of Latin, and Chase for that of Syriac. While both threw valuable light on obscure points, it seems probable that they exaggerated the extent to which retranslation can be traced; that they rankedCodex Bezaesomewhat too highly as the best witness to the “Western” text; and that some of their work was rendered defective by their failure to recognize quite clearly that the “Western” text is not a unity. At the same time, however little of Rendel Harris’s results may ultimately be accepted by the textual critics of the future, his work will always remain historically of the first importance as having done more than anything else to stimulate thought and open new lines of research in textual criticism in the last decade of the 19th century.The time has not yet come when any final attempt can be made to bring all these separate studies together and estimate exactly how far they necessitate serious modification of the views of Westcott and Hort; but a tentative and provisional judgment would probably have to be on somewhat the following lines. The work of WH may be summed up into two theorems:—(1) The text preserved in the later MSS. is not primitive, but built up out of earlier texts;. (2) these earlier texts may be classified as Western, Alexandrian and Neutral, of which the Neutral is the primitive form. The former of these theorems has been generally accepted and may be taken as proved, but the second has been closely criticized and probably must be modified. It has been approached from two sides, according as critics have considered the Western or the Neutral and Alexandrian texts.The Western Text.—This was regarded by WH as a definite text, found in D, the Old Latin and the Old Syriac; and it is an essential part of their theory that in the main these three witnesses represent one text. On the evidence which they had WH were undoubtedly justified, but discoveries and investigation have gone far to make it impossible to hold this view any longer. We now know more about the Old Latin, and, thanks to Mrs Lewis’ discovery, much more about the Old Syriac. The result is that the authorities on which WH relied for their Western text are seen to bear witness to two texts, not to one. The Old Latin, if we take the African form as the oldest, as compared with the Neutral text has a series of interpolations and a series of omissions. The Old Syriac, if we take the Sinaitic MS. as the purest form, compared in the same way, has a similar double series of interpolations and omissions, but neither the omissions nor the interpolations are the same in the Old Latin as in the Old Syriac. Such a line of research suggests that instead of being able, as WH thought, to set the Western against the Neutral text (the Alexandrian being merely a development of the latter), we must consider the problem as the comparison of at least three texts, a Western (geographically), an Eastern and the Neutral. This makes the matter much more difficult; and an answer is demanded to the problem afforded by the agreement of two of these texts against the third. The obvious solution would be to say that where two agree their reading is probably correct, but the followers of WH maintain that the agreement of the Western and Eastern is often an agreement in error. It is difficult to see how texts, geographically so wide apart as the Old Latin and Old Syriac would seem to be, are likely to agree in error, but it is certainly true that some readings found in both texts seem to have little probability. Sanday, followed by Chase and a few other English scholars, has suggested that the Old Latin may have been made originally in Antioch, but this paradoxical view has met with little support. A more probable suggestion is Burkitt’s, who thinks that many readings in our present Old Syriac MSS. are due to the Diatessaron, which was a geographically Western text. It may be that this suggestion will solve the difficulty, but at present it is impossible to say.The Neutral and Alexandrian Texts.—WH made it plain that the Alexandrian text was a literary development of the Neutral, but they always maintained that the latter text was not confined to, though chiefly used in Alexandria. More recent investigations have confirmed their view as to the relation of the Alexandrian to the Neutral text, but have thrown doubt on the age and wide-spread use of the latter. Whatever view be taken of the provenance ofCodex Vaticanusit is plain that its archetype had the Pauline epistles in a peculiar order which is only found in Egypt, and so far no one has been able to discover any non-Alexandrian writer who used the Neutral text. Moreover, Barnard’s researches into the Biblical text of Clement of Alexandria show that there is reason to doubt whether even in Alexandria the Neutral text was used in the earliest times. We have no evidence earlier than Clement, and the text of the New Testament which he quotes has more in common with the Old Latin or “geographically Western” text than with the Neutral, though it definitely agrees with no known type preserved in MSS. or versions. This discovery has put the Neutral text in a different light. It would seem as though we could roughly divide the history of the text in Alexandria into three periods. The earliest is that which is represented by the quotations in Clement, and must have been in use in Alexandria at the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century. It is unfortunately not found in any extant MS. The second stage is that found in the quotations of Origen which is fairly well represented inאB, though Origen seems at times to have used MSS. of the earlier type. The third stage is WH’s Alexandrian, found in the quotations of Cyril of Alexandria and a few MSS. (esp. CL Ξ Δ Ψ). It is clearly a revision of the second stage, as WH saw, but we can now add that it was not merely a literary revision but was influenced by the tendency to revive readings which are found in the first stage but rejected in the second.It thus seems probable that WH’s theory must be modified, both as regards the “Western” text, which is seen not to be a single text at all, and as regards the “Neutral” text, which seems to be nothing more than the second stage of the development of the text in Alexandria. But the importance of these modifications is something more than the doubt which they have thrown on WH’s theories: they have really shifted the centre of gravity of the textual problem.Formerly the Greek uncials, which go back to the 4th century, were regarded as the most important source of evidence, and were supposed to have the decisive vote; but now it is becoming plain that still more important, though unfortunately much less complete, is the evidence of the versions and of quotations by early writers. Both of these point to the existence in the 3rd and even 2nd century of types of text which differ in very many points from anything preserved in Greek MSS. Yet there is no doubt that both of them ultimately represent Greek MSS. which are no longer extant. The question, therefore, is whether we ought not to base our text on the versions and ecclesiastical quotations rather than on the extant Greek MSS. Two positions are possible: (1) We may defend a text based on the best existing Greek MSS. by the argument that these represent the text which was approved by competent judges in the 4th century, and would be found to exist in earlier MSS. if we possessed them. The weak point of this argument is the lack of evidence in support of the second part. The only possible sources of evidence, apart from the discovery of fresh MSS., are the versions, and they do not point to existence in the 2nd or 3rd century of texts agreeing with the great uncials. It is also possible to argue, as WH did, on the same side, that the purest form of text was preserved in Alexandria, from which the oldest uncials are directly or indirectly derived, but this argument has been weakened if not finally disposed of by the evidence of Clement of Alexandria. It is, of course, conceivable that Clement merely used bad MSS., and that there were other MSS. which he might have used, agreeing with the great uncials, but there is no evidence for this view. (2) If we reject this position we must accept the evidence as giving the great uncials much the same secondary importance as Westcott and Hort gave to the later MSS., and make an attempt to reconstruct a text on the basis of versions and Fathers. The adoption of this view sets textual critics a peculiarly difficult task. The first stage in their work must be the establishment of the earliest form of each version, and the collection and examination of the quotations in all the early writers. This has not yet been done, but enough has been accomplished to point to the probability that the result will be the establishment of at least three main types of texts, represented by the Old Syriac, the Old Latin and Clement’s quotations, while it is doubtful how far Tatian’s Diatessaron, the quotations in Justin and a few other sources may be used to reconstruct the type of Greek text used in Rome in the 2nd century when Rome was stillprimarily a Greek church. The second stage must be the comparison of these results and the attempt to reconstruct from them a Greek text from which they all arose.Bibliography.—The literature of textual criticism of the New Testament is so great that only a few of the more important modern books can be mentioned here: H. von Soden,Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments(i. 1902-1907); E. Nestle,Einführung in das griechische Neue Testament(Göttingen, 1909); F.G. Kenyon,Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament(London, 1901); C.R. Gregory,Textkritik des Neuen Testament(Leipzig, 1900-1902), andDie griech. Handschr. des N.T.(Leipzig, 1908); Westcott and Hort,Introduction(vol. ii. of theirNew Testament in Greek, Cambridge, 1882). The history of criticism is dealt with in all the above-mentioned books, and also in F.H. Scrivener,Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament(London, 1894). For other points especially important (besides books mentioned in the preceding section) see F. Blass,Acta Apostolorum(Göttingen, 1895; and an editio minor, with a valuable preface, Leipzig, 1896); Rendel Harris,Four Lectures on the Western Text(Cambridge, 1894); F. Chase,The Syro-Latin Text(London, 1895); W. Bousset,Textkritische Studien(Leipzig, 1894); B. Weiss,Der Codex D in der Apostelgeschichte(Leipzig, 1897); A. Pott,Der abendländische Text d. Apostelgeschichte(Leipzig, 1900); G. Salmon,Some Thoughts on Textual Criticism of the New Testament(London, 1897); Schmidtke,Die Evangelien eines alien Unzialcodex(Leipzig, 1903).

Erasmus.—The firstpublishedtext was that of Erasmus. It was undertaken at the request of Joannes Froben (Frobenius), the printer of Basel, who had heard of Cardinal Ximenes’ project and wished to forestall it. In this he was successful, as it was issued in 1516. It was based chiefly on MSS. at Basel, of which the only really good one (cod. Evan. 1) was seldom followed. Erasmus issued new editions in 1519, 1522, 1527 and 1535, and the Aldine Greek Testament, printed at Venice in 1518, is a reproduction of the first edition.

Stephanus.—Perhaps the most important of all early editions were those of Robert Étienne, or Stephanus, of Paris and afterwards of Geneva. His two first editions (1546, 1549) were based on Erasmus, the Complutensian, and collations of fifteen Greek MSS. These are 16mo volumes, but the third and most important edition (1550) was a folio with a revised text. It is this edition which is usually referred to asthetext of Stephanus. A fourth edition (in 16mo) published at Geneva in 1551 is remarkable for giving the division of the text into verses which has since been generally adopted.

Beza.—Stephanus’ work was continued by Theodore Beza, who published ten editions between 1565 and 1611. They did not greatly differ from the 1550 edition of Stephanus, but historically are important for the great part they played in spreading a knowledge of the Greek text, and as supplying the text which the Elzevirs made the standard on the continent.

Elzevir.—The two brothers, Bonaventura and Abraham Elzevir, published two editions at Leiden in 1624 and 1633, based chiefly on Beza’s text. In the preface to the second edition the first is referred to as “textum... nunc ab omnibus receptum,” and this is the origin of the name “Textus Receptus” (or T.R.) often given to the ordinary Greek Text. The Elzevir text has formed the basis of all non-critical editions on the continent, but in England the 1550 edition of Stephanus has been more generally followed. The importance of both the Stephanus and Elzevir editions is that they formed a definite text for the purposes of comparison, and so prepared the way for the next stage, in which scholars busied themselves with the investigation and collation of other MSS.

Walton’s Polyglot.—The first to begin this work was Brian Walton, bishop of Chester, who published in 1657 in the 5th and 6th volumes of his “polyglot” Bible the text of Stephanus (1550) with the readings of fifteen new MSS. besides those employed by Stephanus himself. The collations were made for him by Archbishop Ussher.

John Fell.—In 1675 John Fell, dean of Christ Church, published the Elzevir text with an enlarged apparatus, but even more important was the help and advice which he gave to the next important editor—Mill.

John Mill, of Queen’s College, Oxford, influenced by the advice, and supported by the purse of John Fell until the latter’s death, published in 1707 a critical edition of the New Testament which has still a considerable value for the scholar. It gives the text of Stephanus (1550) with collations of 78 MSS., besides those of Stephanus, the readings of the Old Latin, so far as was then known, the Vulgate and Peshito, together with full and valuable prolegomena.

Bentley.—A little later Richard Bentley conceived the idea that it would be possible to reconstruct the original text of the New Testament by a comparison of the earliest Greek and Latin sources; he began to collect material for this purpose, and issued a scheme entitled “Proposals for Printing” in 1720, but though he amassed many notes nothing was ever printed.

W. Mace.—Fairness forbids us to omit the name of William (or Daniel?) Mace, a Presbyterian minister who publishedThe New Testament in Greek and English, in 2 vols. in 1729, and really anticipated many of the verdicts of later critics. He was, however, not in a position to obtain recognition, and his work has been generally overlooked.

J.J. Wetstein, one of Bentley’s assistants, when living in Basel in 1730, published “Prolegomena” to the Text, and in 1751-1752 (at Amsterdam) the text of Stephanus with enlarged Prolegomena and apparatus criticus. His textual views were peculiar; he preferred to follow late MSS. on the ground that all the earlier copies had been contaminated by the Latin—almost reversing the teaching of Bentley. His edition is historically very important as it introduced the system of notation which, in the amplified form given to it by Gregory, is still in general use.

J.A. Bengel, abbot of Alpirspach (a Lutheran community), published in 1734, at Tübingen, an edition of the New Testament which marks the beginning of a new era. For the first time an attempt was made to group the MSS., which were divided into African and Asiatic. The former group contained the few old MSS., the latter the many late MSS., and preference was given to the African. This innovation has been followed by almost all critics since Bengel’s time, and it was developed by Griesbach.

J.J. Griesbach, a pupil at Halle of J.S. Semler (who in 1764 reprinted Wetstein’s Prolegomena, and in comments of his own took over and expounded Bengel’s views), collated many MSS., and distinguished three main groups:—the Alexandrian or Origenian (which roughly corresponded to Bengel’s African), found in ABCL, the Egyptian version and Origen; the Western, found in D and Latin authorities; and the Constantinopolitan (Bengel’s Asiatic), found in the later MSS. and in Byzantine writers. His view was that the last group was the least valuable; but, except when internal evidence forbade (and he thought that it frequently did so), he followed the text found in any two groups against the third. His first edition was published in 1774-1775, his second and improved edition in 1796 (vol. i.) and 1806. For the second edition he had the advantage not merely of his own collection of material (published chiefly in hisSymbolae Criticae, 1785-1793), but also of many collations by Birch, Matthaei and Adler, and an edition with new collations by F.K. Alter.

J.L. Hug, Roman Catholic professor of theology at Freiburg, published (Stuttgart and Tübingen) hisEinleitung in die Schriften des N. T.(1808); he is chiefly remarkable for the curious way in which he introduced many critical ideas which were not appreciated at the time but have since been revived. He accepted Griesbach’s views as a whole, but starting from the known recensions of the LXX. he identified Griesbach’s Alexandrian text with the work of Hesychius, and the Constantinopolitan with that of Lucian, while he described Griesbach’s Western text as theκοινὴ ἔκδοσις.

J.M.A. Scholz, a pupil of Hug, inspected and partially collated nearly a thousand MSS. and assigned numbers to them which have since been generally adopted. His work is for this reason important, but is unfortunately inaccurate.

K. Lachmann, the famous classical scholar, opened a new era in textual criticism in 1842-1850, in hisN.T. Graece et Latine. In this great book a break was made for the first time with the traditional text and the evidence of the late MSS., and an attempt was made to reconstruct the text according to the oldest authorities. This was a great step forward, but unfortunately it was accompanied by a retrogression to the pre-Griesbachian (or rather pre-Bengelian) days; for Lachmann rejected the idea of grouping MSS., and having selected a small number of the oldest authorities undertook always to follow the reading of the majority.

C. Tischendorf, the most famous follower of Lachmann, besides editions of many MSS. and the collation of many more, published between 1841 and 1869-1872 eight editions of the New Testament with full critical notes. The eighth edition, which for the first time contained the readings ofא, has not yet been equalled, and together with the Prolegomena, supplied by C.R. Gregory after Tischendorf’s death, is the standard critical edition which is used by scholars all over the world. At the same time it must be admitted that it gradually became antiquated. Fresh collations of MSS., and especially fresh discoveries and investigations into the text of the versions and Fathers, have given much new information which entirely changed the character of the evidence for many readings, and rendered a new edition necessary (seeSoden, H. Von). As a collector and publisher of evidence Tischendorf was marvellous, but as an editor of the text he added little to the principles of Lachmann, and like Lachmann does not seem to have appreciated the value of the Griesbachian system of grouping MSS.

S.P. Tregelles, an English scholar, like Tischendorf, spent almost his whole life in the collection of material, and published a critical edition, based on the earliest authorities, at intervals between 1857 and 1872. His work was eclipsed by Tischendorf’s, and his critical principles were almost the same as the German scholar’s, so that his work has obtained less recognition than would otherwise have been the case. Tischendorf and Tregelles finished the work which Lachmann began. They finally exploded the pretensions of theTextus Receptusto be the original text; but neither of them gave any explanation of the relations of the later text to the earlier, nor developed Griesbach’s system of dealing with groups of MSS. rather than with single copies.

B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort(commonly quoted as WH), the Cambridge scholars, supplied the deficiencies of Lachmann, and without giving up the advantages of his system, and its development by Tischendorf, brought back the study of the text of the New Testament to the methods of Griesbach. Their great work was published in 1881 under the title ofThe New Testament in the Original Greek. Their view of the history of the text is that a comparison of the evidence shows that, while we can distinguish more than one type of text, the most clearly discernible of all the varieties is first recognizable in the quotations of Chrysostom, and is preserved in almost all the later MSS. Though found in so great a number of witnesses, this type of text is shown not to be the earliest or best by the evidence of all the oldest MS. versions and Fathers, as well as by internal evidence. Moreover, a comparison with the earlier sources of evidence shows that it was built up out of previously existing texts. This is proved by the “conflations” which are found in it. For instance in Mark ix. 38 the later MSS. readὃς οὐκ ἀκολουθεῖ ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐκωλύσαμεν αὐτὸν ὄτι οὐκ ἀκολουθεῖ ἡμῖν, a clumsy sentence which is clearly made up out of two earlier readings,καὶ ἐκωλύομεν αὐτὸν ὃτι οὐκ ἠκολούθει ἡμῖν, found inאBCL boh., andὃς οὐκ ἀκολουθεῖ μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν, καὶ ἐκωλύομεν αὐτόν, found in DXfam.¹,fam.¹³ 28 latt. It is impossible, in face of the fact that the evidence of the oldest witnesses of all sorts is constantly opposed to the longer readings, to doubt that WH were right in arguing that these phenomena prove that the later text was made up by a process of revision and conflation of the earlier forms. Influenced by the use of the later text by Chrysostom, WH called it the Syrian or Antiochene text, and refer to the revision which produced it as the Syrian revision. They suggested that it might perhaps be attributed to Lucian, who is known to have made a revision of the text of the LXX. The earlier texts which were used for the Syrian revision may, according to WH, be divided into three:—(1) the Western text, used especially by Latin writers, and found also incod. Bezaeand in Syr C; (2) the Alexandrine text used by Cyril of Alexandria and found especially in CL Ξ 33; and (3) a text which differs from both the above mentioned and is therefore called by WH the Neutral text, found especially inאB and the quotations of Origen. Of these three types WH thought that the Neutral was decidedly the best. The Alexandrian was clearly a literary recension of it, and WH strove to show that the Western was merely due to the non-literary efforts of scribes in other parts to improve the narrative. The only exception which they allowed to this general rule was in the case of certain passages, especially in the last chapters of Luke, where the “Western” authorities omit words which are found in the Neutral and Alexandrian texts. Their reason was that omission seems to be contrary to the genius of the Western text, and that it is therefore probable that these passages represent interpolations made in the text on the Neutral side after the division between it and the Western. They might be called Neutral interpolations, but WH preferred the rather clumsy expression “Western non-interpolations.” Having thus decided that the Neutral text was almost always right, it only remained for WH to choose between the various authorities which preserved this type. They decided that the two best authorities wereאand B, and that when these differed the reading of B, except when obviously an accidental blunder, was probably right. The great importance of this work of WH lies in the facts that it not merely condemns but explains the late Antiochene text, and that it attempts to consider in an objective manner all the existing evidence and to explain it historically and genealogically. Opinions differ as to the correctness of the results reached by WH, but there is scarcely room for doubt that as an example of method their work is quite unrivalled at present and is the necessary starting-point for all modern investigations.

Since Westcott and Hort no work of the same importance appeared up till 1909. Various useful texts have been issued, among which those of Nestle (Novum Testamentum Graece, Stuttgart, 1904), based on a comparison of the texts of Tischendorf, WH and Weiss, and of Baljon (Novum Testamentum Graece, Groningen, 1898), are the best. The only serious attempt as yet published to print a complete text independently of other editors is that of B. Weiss (Das Neue Testament, Leipzig, 1894-1900), but the method followed in this is so subjective and pays so little attention to the evidence of the versions that it is not likely to be permanently important. The text reached is not widely different from that of WH. The new work in course of preparation by von Soden at Berlin, which promises to take the place of Tischendorf’s edition, must certainly do this so far as Greek MSS. are concerned, for the whole field has been reinvestigated by a band of assistants who have grouped and collated specimens of all known MSS.

Besides these works the chief efforts of textual critics since WH have been directed towards the elucidation of minor problems, and the promulgation of certain hypotheses to explain the characteristics either of individual MSS. or of groups of MSS. Among these the works of Sanday, Corssen, Wordsworth, White, Burkitt and Harris on the history of the Old Latin and Vulgate, and especially the work of Burkitt on the Old Syriac, have given most light on the subject. These lines of research have been described in the preceding section on theapparatus criticus. Other noteworthy and interesting, though in the end probably less important, work has been done by Blass, Bousset, Schmidtke, Rendel Harris and Chase. The outline of the chief works is as follows:—

F. Blass.—In his various books on the Acts and third gospel Blass has propounded a new theory as to the “Western” text. He wasstruck by the fact that neither the Western can be shown to be derived from the Neutral, nor the Neutral from the Western. He therefore conceived the idea that perhaps both texts were Lucan, and represented two recensions by the original writer, and he reconstructed the history as follows. Luke wrote the first edition of the Gospel for Theophilus from Caesarea; this is the Neutral text of the Gospel. Afterwards he went to Rome and there revised the text of the Gospel and reissued it for the Church in that city; this is the Western (or, as Blass calls it, Roman) text of the Gospel. At the same time he continued his narrative for the benefit of the Roman Church, and published the Western text of the Acts. Finally he revised the Acts and sent a copy to Theophilus; this is the Neutral text of the Acts. This ingenious theory met with considerable approval when it was first advanced, but it has gradually been seen that “Western” text does not possess the unity which Blass’s theory requires it to have. Still, Blass’s textual notes are very important, and there is a mass of material in his books.

Bousset and Schmidtke.—These two scholars have done much work in trying to identify smaller groups of MSS. with local texts. Bousset has argued that the readings in the Pauline epistles found inאcH and a few minuscules represent the text used by Pamphilus, and on the whole this view seems to be highly probable. Another group which Bousset has tried to identify is that headed by B, which he connects with the recension of Hesychius, but this theory, though widely accepted in Germany, does not seem to rest on a very solid basis. To some extent influenced by and using Bousset’s results, Schmidtke has tried to show that certain small lines in the margin of B point to a connexion between that MS. and a Gospel harmony, which, by assuming that the text of B is Hesychian, he identifies with that of Ammonius. If true, this is exceedingly important. Nestle, however, and other scholars think that the lines in B are merely indications of a division of the text into sense-paragraphs and have nothing to do with any harmony.

Rendel HarrisandChase.—Two investigations, which attracted much notice when they were published, tried to explain the phenomena of the Western text as due to retranslation from early versions into Greek. Rendel Harris argued for the influence of Latin, and Chase for that of Syriac. While both threw valuable light on obscure points, it seems probable that they exaggerated the extent to which retranslation can be traced; that they rankedCodex Bezaesomewhat too highly as the best witness to the “Western” text; and that some of their work was rendered defective by their failure to recognize quite clearly that the “Western” text is not a unity. At the same time, however little of Rendel Harris’s results may ultimately be accepted by the textual critics of the future, his work will always remain historically of the first importance as having done more than anything else to stimulate thought and open new lines of research in textual criticism in the last decade of the 19th century.

The time has not yet come when any final attempt can be made to bring all these separate studies together and estimate exactly how far they necessitate serious modification of the views of Westcott and Hort; but a tentative and provisional judgment would probably have to be on somewhat the following lines. The work of WH may be summed up into two theorems:—(1) The text preserved in the later MSS. is not primitive, but built up out of earlier texts;. (2) these earlier texts may be classified as Western, Alexandrian and Neutral, of which the Neutral is the primitive form. The former of these theorems has been generally accepted and may be taken as proved, but the second has been closely criticized and probably must be modified. It has been approached from two sides, according as critics have considered the Western or the Neutral and Alexandrian texts.

The Western Text.—This was regarded by WH as a definite text, found in D, the Old Latin and the Old Syriac; and it is an essential part of their theory that in the main these three witnesses represent one text. On the evidence which they had WH were undoubtedly justified, but discoveries and investigation have gone far to make it impossible to hold this view any longer. We now know more about the Old Latin, and, thanks to Mrs Lewis’ discovery, much more about the Old Syriac. The result is that the authorities on which WH relied for their Western text are seen to bear witness to two texts, not to one. The Old Latin, if we take the African form as the oldest, as compared with the Neutral text has a series of interpolations and a series of omissions. The Old Syriac, if we take the Sinaitic MS. as the purest form, compared in the same way, has a similar double series of interpolations and omissions, but neither the omissions nor the interpolations are the same in the Old Latin as in the Old Syriac. Such a line of research suggests that instead of being able, as WH thought, to set the Western against the Neutral text (the Alexandrian being merely a development of the latter), we must consider the problem as the comparison of at least three texts, a Western (geographically), an Eastern and the Neutral. This makes the matter much more difficult; and an answer is demanded to the problem afforded by the agreement of two of these texts against the third. The obvious solution would be to say that where two agree their reading is probably correct, but the followers of WH maintain that the agreement of the Western and Eastern is often an agreement in error. It is difficult to see how texts, geographically so wide apart as the Old Latin and Old Syriac would seem to be, are likely to agree in error, but it is certainly true that some readings found in both texts seem to have little probability. Sanday, followed by Chase and a few other English scholars, has suggested that the Old Latin may have been made originally in Antioch, but this paradoxical view has met with little support. A more probable suggestion is Burkitt’s, who thinks that many readings in our present Old Syriac MSS. are due to the Diatessaron, which was a geographically Western text. It may be that this suggestion will solve the difficulty, but at present it is impossible to say.

The Neutral and Alexandrian Texts.—WH made it plain that the Alexandrian text was a literary development of the Neutral, but they always maintained that the latter text was not confined to, though chiefly used in Alexandria. More recent investigations have confirmed their view as to the relation of the Alexandrian to the Neutral text, but have thrown doubt on the age and wide-spread use of the latter. Whatever view be taken of the provenance ofCodex Vaticanusit is plain that its archetype had the Pauline epistles in a peculiar order which is only found in Egypt, and so far no one has been able to discover any non-Alexandrian writer who used the Neutral text. Moreover, Barnard’s researches into the Biblical text of Clement of Alexandria show that there is reason to doubt whether even in Alexandria the Neutral text was used in the earliest times. We have no evidence earlier than Clement, and the text of the New Testament which he quotes has more in common with the Old Latin or “geographically Western” text than with the Neutral, though it definitely agrees with no known type preserved in MSS. or versions. This discovery has put the Neutral text in a different light. It would seem as though we could roughly divide the history of the text in Alexandria into three periods. The earliest is that which is represented by the quotations in Clement, and must have been in use in Alexandria at the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century. It is unfortunately not found in any extant MS. The second stage is that found in the quotations of Origen which is fairly well represented inאB, though Origen seems at times to have used MSS. of the earlier type. The third stage is WH’s Alexandrian, found in the quotations of Cyril of Alexandria and a few MSS. (esp. CL Ξ Δ Ψ). It is clearly a revision of the second stage, as WH saw, but we can now add that it was not merely a literary revision but was influenced by the tendency to revive readings which are found in the first stage but rejected in the second.

It thus seems probable that WH’s theory must be modified, both as regards the “Western” text, which is seen not to be a single text at all, and as regards the “Neutral” text, which seems to be nothing more than the second stage of the development of the text in Alexandria. But the importance of these modifications is something more than the doubt which they have thrown on WH’s theories: they have really shifted the centre of gravity of the textual problem.

Formerly the Greek uncials, which go back to the 4th century, were regarded as the most important source of evidence, and were supposed to have the decisive vote; but now it is becoming plain that still more important, though unfortunately much less complete, is the evidence of the versions and of quotations by early writers. Both of these point to the existence in the 3rd and even 2nd century of types of text which differ in very many points from anything preserved in Greek MSS. Yet there is no doubt that both of them ultimately represent Greek MSS. which are no longer extant. The question, therefore, is whether we ought not to base our text on the versions and ecclesiastical quotations rather than on the extant Greek MSS. Two positions are possible: (1) We may defend a text based on the best existing Greek MSS. by the argument that these represent the text which was approved by competent judges in the 4th century, and would be found to exist in earlier MSS. if we possessed them. The weak point of this argument is the lack of evidence in support of the second part. The only possible sources of evidence, apart from the discovery of fresh MSS., are the versions, and they do not point to existence in the 2nd or 3rd century of texts agreeing with the great uncials. It is also possible to argue, as WH did, on the same side, that the purest form of text was preserved in Alexandria, from which the oldest uncials are directly or indirectly derived, but this argument has been weakened if not finally disposed of by the evidence of Clement of Alexandria. It is, of course, conceivable that Clement merely used bad MSS., and that there were other MSS. which he might have used, agreeing with the great uncials, but there is no evidence for this view. (2) If we reject this position we must accept the evidence as giving the great uncials much the same secondary importance as Westcott and Hort gave to the later MSS., and make an attempt to reconstruct a text on the basis of versions and Fathers. The adoption of this view sets textual critics a peculiarly difficult task. The first stage in their work must be the establishment of the earliest form of each version, and the collection and examination of the quotations in all the early writers. This has not yet been done, but enough has been accomplished to point to the probability that the result will be the establishment of at least three main types of texts, represented by the Old Syriac, the Old Latin and Clement’s quotations, while it is doubtful how far Tatian’s Diatessaron, the quotations in Justin and a few other sources may be used to reconstruct the type of Greek text used in Rome in the 2nd century when Rome was stillprimarily a Greek church. The second stage must be the comparison of these results and the attempt to reconstruct from them a Greek text from which they all arose.

Bibliography.—The literature of textual criticism of the New Testament is so great that only a few of the more important modern books can be mentioned here: H. von Soden,Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments(i. 1902-1907); E. Nestle,Einführung in das griechische Neue Testament(Göttingen, 1909); F.G. Kenyon,Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament(London, 1901); C.R. Gregory,Textkritik des Neuen Testament(Leipzig, 1900-1902), andDie griech. Handschr. des N.T.(Leipzig, 1908); Westcott and Hort,Introduction(vol. ii. of theirNew Testament in Greek, Cambridge, 1882). The history of criticism is dealt with in all the above-mentioned books, and also in F.H. Scrivener,Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament(London, 1894). For other points especially important (besides books mentioned in the preceding section) see F. Blass,Acta Apostolorum(Göttingen, 1895; and an editio minor, with a valuable preface, Leipzig, 1896); Rendel Harris,Four Lectures on the Western Text(Cambridge, 1894); F. Chase,The Syro-Latin Text(London, 1895); W. Bousset,Textkritische Studien(Leipzig, 1894); B. Weiss,Der Codex D in der Apostelgeschichte(Leipzig, 1897); A. Pott,Der abendländische Text d. Apostelgeschichte(Leipzig, 1900); G. Salmon,Some Thoughts on Textual Criticism of the New Testament(London, 1897); Schmidtke,Die Evangelien eines alien Unzialcodex(Leipzig, 1903).

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