CONTENTS. Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum, Sancta Evangelia com- plectentium, cum editione Elzevir. 1624 a me collatorum. lxxvi INTRODUCTION. CHAPTER I. ON THE EXISTING STATE OF THE GREEK TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. HE following pages comprise an humble yet ear THE nest attempt to revive among the countrymen of Bentley and Mill some interest in a branch of Biblical learning which, for upwards of a century, we have tacitly abandoned to continental scholars. The criticism of the text of Holy Scripture, though confessedly inferior in point of dignity and importance to its right interpretation, yet takes precedence of it in order of time: for how can we consistently proceed to investigate the sense of the Sacred Volume, till we have done our utmost to ascertain its precise words? Now to whatever cause we may attribute this strange and scarcely creditable neglect on the part of English Divines, it certainly cannot arise from a paucity of unwrought materials, or exhaustion of the subject. On this point, however, in the room of any statement of my own, I will lay before the reader the ingenuous confession of one of the highest living authorities on Biblical Criticism, in one of the most recent of his publications. "Ut enim dicam quod res est, ex omnibus qui collati sunt codices, soli illi Alexandrinus [A], Ephraem. Syri [C], Cantabrigiensis [D], Dublinensis [Z], Sangallensis [4] et Dresdensis [G. Paul.] ita sunt excussi, ut quid scriptum sin b gulis locis teneant quid non, scias" (Scholz, Commemoration Address at Bonn, 1845, p. 2).* A melancholy summary indeed of the labours of two centuries in a field of study, where all that is not scrupulously exact is useless at the best yet no one who has ever compared two or three manuscripts with the representations of them contained in Mill's or Wetstein's or Griesbach's or Scholz's own edition will hesitate to admit its literal truth. To collate an ancient copy of the New Testament is a task requiring more time, care, and patience than men are very willing to bestow on such an object; to describe its external condition, to glance over a few chapters and so form a random guess at its recension or internal character, is far easier, and will swell a catalogue just as well. I have cited above the calm and mature judgment of Professor Scholz (unquestionably one of the most industrious, if not the most brilliant, of the great editors of the Greek Testament) as to the results of what has been already accomplished for the sacred text: there was a time when he held far different language; when he could speak of his own achievements in such terms as these, "omnibus fere, qui adhuc supersunt, testibus exploratis, eorumque lectionibus diligenterconquisitis," (Præf. N. T. Vol. 1. p. 2, 1829): yet even then his own Prolegomena would have sufficed to shew how large allowance we must make for the ardent temperament of the writer. It will be convenient, in the present volume, to confine our attention to the Four Gospels. To the 286 Evangelia and 57 Evangelisteria known before the publication of his edition, his indefatigable diligence and extensive travels have added 210 Evangelia and 121 Evangelisteria: in fact, he has nearly doubled the list. * Tischendorf's zeal has very recently enabled us to add a few items to this meagre list. |