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upon which his own text is mainly based. Every defect which he has charged against them has been conclusively proved by Tischendorf, (in the preface to the first edition, Leipzig, 1841,) to attach, in far greater degree, to those upon which he places his main dependence; and the principle upon which Bentley proposed to construct a critical text, may be considered as now, after all the labours of intervening scholars which have been applied to the subject, placed beyond doubt.

But although this is the first step to be taken, it is not the only one which may be made by the skilful and cautious critic. Jerome expressly states, in his letter to Damasus, that he throws out of consideration one class of Greek manuscripts *, apparently varying from the others chiefly by additions,―on the ground that early versions manifestly showed that such additions had been a recent interpolation. Here then we have a fingerpost pointing to at least a negative use to be made of anteHieronymian versions, such as the Syrian and the several branches of the Coptic. The former of these, at least, is accessible in several most ancient codices, one of which, apparently of extreme antiquity, is now in the British Museum, having been brought thither from the Natrian desert in the year 1847, and is, we believe, about to be published by Mr. Cureton. A few various readings are also given in Blanchini's Evangelium Quadruplex from four Syrian MSS. in the Vatican, which the collator describes as being 'miræ vetustatis.' It seems reasonable to expect that by an accurate comparison of all these, the Peschito text at least of the Gospels may be recovered as it existed at the end of the second century. A restoration of the Coptic, of a century later, is likewise a hopeful matter; and although we have no means of ascertaining what was the character of the Greek MSS. from which these versions were taken, there is every presumption in favour of their quality. Finally, from the very Latin Versions, the diversity of which had caused so much perplexity in Jerome's time, no small harvest is still to be reaped. They were made from Greek MSS. in very early times, and whatever the quality of these may have been (and there is no antecedent presumption against its having been good), they represent, in some instances with great accuracy, the readings which existed in those manuscripts,

and thus furnish an additional witness, highly important at least negatively, in constructing a critical text. Some of the codices containing these versions are of very high antiquity;

He describes them as eos codices quos a Luciano et Hesychio 'nominatos paucorum hominum asserit perversa contentio.'

1851.

The more Modern Greek Manuscripts.

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and several of them possess such a mutual resemblance as to make it unquestionable that their common ancestor is a single Greek copy, probably written before the time of Origen, and belonging to another family than the Alexandrine. Two manuscripts containing the Gospels, published first by Blanchini in his Evangelium Quadruplex, under the names Codex Vercellensis, and Codex Veronensis, (from the libraries where they were found,) and a third in the library at Vienna, collated by Tischendorf, in his second edition, under the name of Codex Palatinus, are most remarkable specimens of this class. They appear to have great affinity with the singular Codex Beza, and from their agreement with the citations of the Latin African Fathers, Tertullian and Cyprian, it has been plausibly conjectured that the origin of their archetypal text is to be looked for in that part of Africa; from whence, probably, copies were brought into Italy. They all agree with one another in the peculiar arrangement of the Gospels, placing them in the order Matthew, John, Luke, and Mark, according to the relative dignity assigned by Tertullian, - apostles before apostolic men; an arrangement which, perhaps owing to the authority of Origen and Jerome, has gradually given place to the one commonly received, which is supposed to indicate Origen's opinion of the order in which the works severally appeared.

There is still another, numerically important, class of authorities which remains to be noticed. This consists of the more modern Greek manuscripts, which, as is natural, are almost all derived from that part of Europe and Asia in which the Christian ritual continued, to a late period, to be carried on in the Greek language. It was from manuscripts of this class that the New Testament was first printed, and their remarkable uniformity has induced some to contend that there is a presumption in favour of their having transmitted the text more accurately than any others. This view, which was the more readily received from the circumstance that it went towards restoring the shaken credit of the Elzevir text, was put forward by Matthæi, who published the New Testament from a large number of Moscow MSS., and it has since been acted upon by Scholz in his critical edition. But the uniformity which constitutes primâ facie the recommendation of this family of codices, is found equally to prevail in the Latin MSS. of the eleventh and subsequent centuries which are found in Western Europe. This at once points to the cause of the phenomenon in question. The uniformity is in both cases a spurious one, superinduced by the close connexion which subsisted in the middle ages between the several churches in which the volumes were in use. The copies

were taken one from another without reference to age, or indeed anything else, except agreement with the text already in use. The few manuscripts belonging to this family (to which the name of Constantinopolitan has been given), which are of superior antiquity to the great bulk, exhibit the greatest number of variations from the Elzevir text, and approach the nearest to the codices which are derived from Alexandria.

We have now given the reader a sketch of the principal classes of authorities which exist for the constitution of a critical text; and he may judge how much remains to be done. In the first place supposing an accurate collation made of all existing MSS. (a work which has been performed for very few of the more modern, and by no means all of the old), groups must be formed of those which are found to represent the same archetypal transcript, and its date and country ascertained. This is not always so difficult as might appear to a stranger to the subject. Some of the MSS., especially the older ones, have appended to them notes which determine it. Thus a codex which was brought from Mount Athos* containing some fragments of St. Paul's Epistles, itself of the seventh century, has the notice that it was collated (avreßλnon) with a copy in the library of Pamphilus at Cæsarea, written by his own hand. It thus, so far as it remains, is an evidence for the readings of that volume, i. e. for the best text at Cæsarea in the beginning of the fourth century.

After the individual codices have been thus distributed into certain groups, the generic resemblance of those groups to one another will become more distinct, and their characteristic differences more salient; so as to permit of a new distribution of the groups themselves. In this process there will be gradually eliminated all the errors which have crept into the text from what may be regarded mere accidental causes; and there will remain in the ultimate arrangement only those broad and unmistakable variations which are due to differences in very early originals, belonging to widely dispersed localities. Then, as we believe, it will become by no means difficult to represent to the eye the text of the New Testament as it was read at Carthage, at Rome, in Gaul, in Greece Proper, in Asia Minor, at Antioch, at Cæsarea, and at Alexandria, at periods between the years 150 and 400,- and thus, by accurately ascertaining the

This MS., which is denoted by the symbol H in Tischendorf, was published by Montfaucon, in the Bibliotheca Coisliniana. Although itself Constantinopolitan by country, Scholz is forced to allow that its text goes with the Alexandrine.

1851.

Outline of the Course to be pursued.

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limits of what we may call its structural varieties, we shall be put in a position for discussing more profitably than is otherwise possible, the law which regulated the composition of its several parts. In the present state of things we believe this to be a most unpromising undertaking. The very dialect of the writings is an extremely uncertain question, and one which would have to be decided in a different manner according as one class or another of MSS. might be regarded as best representing the archetypal text. It has indeed, by some scholars, been tacitly assumed as an axiom, that the rugged Alexandrine forms and constructions which are found in the older MSS. must have been introduced by the grammarians of that learned city. But if so, why do we not find such forms in the writings of the most learned Ålexandrines themselves, of Philo, Clement, and Origen? They exist only in the Septuagint Version of the Old Testament, which is used by the writers of the New and even if they are to be regarded as an adventitious garb, it seems at least as likely that such a one should have originally commended itself to the authors as subsequently to the copyists or commentators. But, in point of fact, the peculiar forms of the so-called Alexandrine dialect were, not improbably, the common property of the commercial population, (of which a large proportion were Hellenizing Jews,) throughout Palestine, Egypt, and the parts ' of Libya about Cyrene.'

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Of the works we have placed at the head of this Article, the one which has contributed the most towards filling up the outline we have traced is the volume of Lachmann. The editor some years back issued a text, which has been stereotyped, but is little known in England. It is constructed entirely from those authorities which he regarded as representing the genuine readings of the fourth century in the East (a term in which he includes Egypt and Palestine). The present volume (which, however, extends only to the Four Gospels) attempts to give the testimony, both concurrent and divergent, of the anteHieronymian Latin Versions of the Western Church; of the Alexandrine Greek MSS.; of the Codex Beza; of the genuine Vulgate of Jerome; and of the readings to be elicited from the writings of Origen, Irenæus, Cyprian, Hilary of Poictiers, and Lucifer of Cagliari. When his authorities all agree, he conceives that there is irrefragable evidence for the existence of the reading so warranted in Gaul, Italy, Africa, Alexandria, and Palestine, in the second or third century. If there should be any discrepancy in the authorities, a corresponding variation of evidence is indicated. For instance, in Matt. xix. 9. the readings vary thus:

1. Ὃς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ [παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας] καὶ γαμήσῃ ἄλλην, μοιχᾶται.

This is the text sanctioned by the present representatives of the Italiano-African codices, and the Greek Codex Bezæ.

2. ὓς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ [παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας] ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι, καὶ ὁ ἀπολελυμένην γαμήσας, μοιχᾶται.

This is the text sanctioned by the Alexandrine and Vatican MSS., and by Origen.

3. The Vulgate agrees with the Alexandrine MSS. in making two clauses, but with the Italiano-African versions in giving machatur, and not machari facit, in the former, exactly what Jerome's prin

ciple would lead us to expect.

The words inclosed in brackets are varied in individual MSS. by the alternatives μὴ ἐπὶ πορνείᾳ and εἰ μὴ ἐπὶ πορνεία.

In Matt. xx. 22. The Italiano-African Versions, here also agreeing with the Codex Bezæ, sanction the reading dúvace πίνειν (or πιεῖν) τὸ ποτήριον ὃ ἐγὼ μέλλω πίνειν; proceeding no further. Similarly in the next verse they proceed no further than τὸ μὲν ποτήριόν μου πίεσθε. In both these cases they are supported by the Vulgate, by the testimony of Hilary, and by that of Origen, who even asserts that the addition (or xai) To βάπτισμα ὃ ἐγὼ βαπτίζομαι βαπτισθῆναι is to be found in Mark, but not in Matthew. But, although one of the ancient Alexandrine MSS. (B) agrees with this reading, the other (C) gives the addition which is found in the Textus Receptus. But when we turn to the parallel passage (Mark, x. 38, 39.), we find that the additional clause rests on the unanimous suffrage of all the Alexandrine MSS., all the Italiano-African Versions, Jerome's Vulgate, and the Codex Beza. Putting this evidence together with the statement of Jerome in his preface, it cannot be doubted that the second clauses TÒ βάπτισμα ὃ ἐγὼ βαπτίζομαι βαπτισθῆναι and καὶ τὸ βάπτισμα ὃ ἐγὼ βαπτίζομαι βαπτισθήσεσθε in Matt. xx. 22, 23. were interpolated in Codex (C), or the MS. from which it was made, and in the archetype of the Elzevir MSS., to produce a more exact conformity with the text of Mark, while the existence of the duplication in the latter Evangelist rests on the unanimous evidence of MSS., Versions, and Fathers reaching up to the early part of the third century, and dispersed over widely separated regions.

Here all the great Codices, the Alexandrine, Vatican, and Codex Ephraemi, come in with their evidence. In Matthew there is a gap in the first.

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