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another. The change must have come through a Latin version; arborum,' the translation of devSpwv, became readily altered into (or taken for) arvorum,' and the Greek equivalent of this (aypov) was placed in the margin as an alternative reading to Sévdpwv. The true reading is (we have little doubt) to be gathered from the combination of the two sources: Kai Toroi τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτῶν ἔστρωσαν εἰς τὴν ὁδὸν, ἄλλοι δὲ στιβάδας κάτ ψαντες ἐκ τῶν δένδρων.

III.—Luc. xiv. 5. The reading of the Textus Receptus is τίνος ὑμῶν ὄνος ἢ βοῦς εἰς φρέαρ πεσεῖται; if there were no variations in the MSS. there would be nothing here but what might be expected. The two animals, the ass' and 'the ox,' are continually coupled together in the Old Testament, and therefore may naturally be expected in connexion with one another here. But how to account for the extraordinary variation of the older Greek MSS.? With two exceptions the uncial codices all have the reading, τίνος ὑμῶν υἱὸς ἢ βοῦς εἰς φρέαρ πεσεῖται; • Which of you shall have a son or an ox fall into a pit ?-a reading which is obviously an absurd one, but which is sanctioned not only by a large number of uncial MSS., but by some versions and ecclesiastical writers. Of the two exceptions the one is the Vatican Codex, which has ó viòs reading which would witness against itself by the article, even if there were nothing suspicious about viòs); and the other, the Codex Beza, which furnishes a clue to the whole difficulty. That MS. has τίνος ἐξ ὑμῶν πρόβατον ἢ βοῦς εἰς φρέαρ πεσεῖται ; The Latin equivalent of póßaтov (ovis) being written in the margin of a Greek MS. by way of explanation of the word, was no doubt taken by transcribers for a Greek word erroneously spelt, and indicating an alternative reading. One probably thought the initial letter forced out of its proper place, and that for ovis was to be read viós. Another, taking the initial letter for the article, thought that the o of the last syllable had been omitted, and that by ovis was meant o viòs, the reading of the Vatican Codex. Whether ovos is an arbitrary correction of the senseless reading viòs, or whether there were two very early alternative readings, τίνος ὑμῶν πρόβατον ἢ βοῦς,and τίνος ὑμῶν ovos Boûs, we will not pretend to determine. But we think no one, whose attention has been once called to the matter, will doubt for an instant that the reading τίνος ὑμῶν υἱὸς ἡ βοῦς (which has far more weighty MSS. authority than any other), grew up in the way we have described through the intervention of a Latin version.

The edition of Mr. Alford is, so far as the apparatus criticus goes, entirely based upon the collations of Scholz, Lachmann,

1851.

Alford's Apparatus Criticus of little Use.

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and Tischendorf; and, of course, shares in whatever defects may exist in these. His arrangement of various readings is much more agreeable to the eye than those of his predecessors; and he has adopted a typographical contrivance as useful as it is simple, by means of which the reader observes, at the beginning of every page, what primary authorities exist for the constitu tion of the text. A little extension of this, to show with equal facility where a lacuna commences in any one of these, would be a further improvement. But we cannot bestow undivided praise upon this part of his work. He has lost sight of the distinctions carefully observed by Lachmann, has very much under-valued the ancient codices containing the Latin versions*, and has encumbered his margin with confirmations of lections from ecclesiastical writers which it is impossible to verify for want of references. The number of variations, likewise, which he has excluded from mention, as unimportant to the sense, is so great, that the character of the several MSS. is in many cases effectually masked by their concealment. The Alexandrian forms sinav, eixav, èλoáтw, &c. - the insertion or omission ἐλθάτω, of the article before proper names, the insertion or omission of the words αὐτὸς, οι Ἰησοῦς, οι αὐτοῖς, οι πρὸς αὐτὸν, &c. — the variations which occur in the connexion of sentences, such εἰς ἀποκριθεὶς εἶπεν, εἶπεν οὖν, &c. — and mere transpositions of words,' are all included among Mr. Alford's reticences. But if importance to the sense is to be the sole condition on which a variation may claim admittance into the margin, the book might have been yet diminished in bulk very considerably. At present the apparatus criticus labours under the fault of being both incomplete and cumbrous, almost useless to the professed scholar, and quite unmanageable by the student. The accounts, too, of the several MSS. are far too meagre to convey any real information of their character to any one who is not already tolerably well acquainted with them; and some of the statements are very inaccurate, apparently from the circumstance of an undue reliance being placed upon the description of an intermediate authority. Thus, for instance, the account which is given of the principle upon which Lachmann classifies his authorities, as dividing them into primary and secondary, is calculated to produce a very false impression of the method really pursued by that distinguished scholar. Again, apparently following only

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• Of these Bentley says in a letter to Wetstein, Hujusmodi Latinos veterrimos vel Græcis ipsis prætulerim.' This preference, it should be remembered, was with reference to the special purpose he had in hand.

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the account of Tischendorf, Mr. Alford describes the Bentleian collation of the famous Vatican Codex as being made by Thomas Bentley, who was sent to Rome by his uncle, the great Bentley, for that purpose; and was assisted by Mico, an Italian.' Thomas Bentley himself tells a very different story. Mico is dead,' he says in a letter to his uncle (March 25. 1726); but there's 'an able young man in his place.' All that he himself did was to verify the collation of Mico: 'I send you the collation, that you may see whether 'tis the same with Mico's. I opened ' at random, and fell upon the latter part of the Acts; so began the 27th chapter. . . . . Besides the 27th of the Acts, I did a chapter in the Epistle to the Galatians, and another to the Ephesians. You'll have them in the next.' (Aug. 2. 1726.) Three years afterwards Bentley, who probably had been curious to know every particular of this venerable codex, obtained, through the agency of Baron Stosch, a copy of the interlineary and marginal readings, which was made by the Abbé Rulotta, who got forty scudi for the job. (Letter from Baron de Stosch in the Bentley Correspondence, July 9. 1729.) These circumstances are thus mixed up by Tischendorf, whom Mr. Alford takes unsuspiciously as his guide:-Thomæ Bentleii, quem ad id negotii Romam miserat avunculus Ricardus celeberrimus, 'collationem factam potissimum Miconis Itali manu transcripsit Woidius, transcriptamque edidit Henricus Ford in appendice 'ad editionem Novi Testamenti e cod. ms. Alexandrino 1799.' These and such like inaccuracies are perhaps of no great importance in themselves; for the whole portion of the volume in which they occur will probably be passed over by ninety-nine readers out of every hundred: but they ought not to have been incurred by any one who takes upon himself the responsibility of discussing the various philological problems of the New Testament Text in such a manner as to attract a class of readers that must take his assertions on trust.

Mr. Alford, in eighty-eight pages of Prolegomena, has attempted to discuss the weighty questions relative to the composition of the Four Gospels, to which we have alluded above. Perhaps it was necessary, from the comprehensive character which he has given to his notes, that this should be done; as otherwise the principles upon which some of his best explanations rest might be misunderstood. But the extent of the subjects he has entered upon is such, that even the most learned and diligent might well be excused for treating them somewhat inadequately; and this, haste and the desire of compression has in several instances compelled him to do. He considers the testimony of the early ecclesiastical writers conclusive as to the fact

1851.

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A Hebrew Original of St. Matthew examined. that the Gospel of St. Matthew was originally written in Hebrew (i.e. the vernacular language of Palestine), while he treats as entirely futile the statement that the Gospel of St. Mark was composed under the influence of St. Peter. In weighing the authorities for the latter statement, he says we may observe that the matter to which they refer is not one of patent fact, such 'as Matthew's Gospel having been originally composed and 'published in Hebrew, but one which could, from its nature, have been known to very few persons.' This is, it appears to us, a very erroneous statement of the case. The close connexion of St. Peter with St. Mark as his companion and spiritual son appears from 1 Pet. v. 13. St. Mark's mother was the Mary, to whose house Peter resorted immediately after his miraculous delivery from prison. (Acts, xii. 12.) And if St. Mark did follow the authority of the Apostle in his compilation, this would be a patent fact' on the very instant of its publication; for the whole of its authority would be derived from that very circumstance. On the other hand, the existence of a Gospel by St. Matthew in the Hebrew language is completely a matter of hearsay until the time of Jerome. Papias (ap. Euseb. iii. 39.) does not give the fact as on the authority of John the Presbyter -which Mr. Alford states him to do, although he does explicitly quote John as the source of what he says respecting St. Mark. And the expression which Eusebius applies to Papias, ἀνὴρ τὰ παντα λογιώτατος (which Mr. Alford strangely considers to imply the giving him all weight as an historic witness'), is perfectly explained by the Bishop of Hierapolis himself in the very same chapter of Eusebius's History. He entertained the very natural feeling of intense interest for every anecdote which he could gather from such as had themselves conversed with any of the favoured number that saw with their own eyes, and touched with their own hands, the Incarnate Word. If any one happened to arrive,' says he, who had kept company with the elders, I used to inquire of them the stories told by the ' elders. What did Andrew, and what did Peter say? what Philip? what Thomas? what James? or what does John, or 'Matthew, or any other of the Lord's disciples? and Aristion, and John the Elder [the disciples of the Lord]* — what do they say? For my notion was, that what I got out of the books did not do me so much good as what I heard from the living voice still remaining.' This disposition, of course, made him a man full of anecdotes on all subjects,' and is quite compatible with that 'meagre understanding' (opódpa σμiкpòs τèv

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The words in brackets are probably an interpolation.

Voûv, Euseb. iii. 30.) which appeared from his works,' and which made him, among other half-fabulous (uvoikoтspa) stories, relate that a millennium reign of Christ in the flesh was to come to pass upon the existing earth. But it renders him a very uncertain authority for a story which involves so many difficulties as the Hebrew original of St. Matthew's Gospel. The testimony of Irenæus we indeed have no right, as Mr. Alford says, to consider as necessarily derived from Papias. But what does it amount to? Matthew,' he says, 'published a written gospel among the Hebrews, while Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel and laying the foundations of the Church in Rome.' This according to Mr. Alford's allowing, cannot be earlier than 61 A. D. But long before this the Gospel had been preached far and wide among the Gentiles; and is it likely that the Christians of Palestine should all the time have depended on solely oral instruction; and still that it should afterwards have been found necessary to record the staple of this, not in the Greek language, which would insure its wide circulation, but in the vernacular dialect? And even if so written, and at so long an interval after the events which it relates, is it likely that it would have been incomplete to such an extent as to omit all account of the Ascension?—or that if it had contained this, the translator and compiler of the existing Gospel would not have inserted it? All these difficulties follow at once from the statement of Irenæus, that the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew was written while St. Paul was in Rome. But this statement is the only thing which gives a distinctive character to his authority. If we separate this portion from the rest, by supposing it a mere error of calculation on the part of Irenæus, it is difficult to conceive the residue as reposing on any other foundation than the tradition recorded by Papias.

Besides these two authorities, Mr. Alford relies upon the tradition (ap. Euseb. H. E. v. 10.) that Pantænus, on his arrival as a missionary in India, found the gospel of St. Matthew there, written in Hebrew letters, and said to have been left by St. Bartholomew. This is probably a different tradition from the one of which Papias is the source, but the same with that which Origen (ap. Euseb. H. E. vi. 25.) gives. Their identity is shown by the description of the work. It is not said to be written Εβραιστὶ, but Εβραικοῖς γράμμασιν. And Origen's statement does not only exist in Eusebius, but in the extant commentary on St. Matthew, where he himself states (which is not quite clear from Eusebius) that a tradition' is the source of his information. When we consider that Clement of Alexandria was his master, and Pantænus Clement's, the identity of the

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