deposited in England, is contained in the first volume of the Benedictine
edition of St. Jerome’s works (Paris, 1693). In this book (B. xvii. 14)
Dr. Westcott has pasted a valuable note, wherein he identifies the
manuscripts used by Bentley by the means of his own actual collation.
Those described above in Chap. III are the following:
B. M. Harl. 1802 (W),
B. M. _harl._2 (M. of Epistles, &c.),
B. M. Addit. 5463 (F),
B. M. King’s Lib. I. A. 18 (O),
B. M. King’s Lib. I. B. VII. (H),
B. M. King’s Lib. I. E. VI. (P),
B. M. C. C. C. Camb. 286 (B),
B. M. Trin. Coll. Camb. B. X. 5 (S),
B. M. Trin. Coll. Camb. B. X. 4 (T, _ibid._),
B. M. _lind._ (Y: as in B. XVII. 5),
B. M. Camb. Univ. Lib. Kk. I. 24 (χ).
Westcott further appropriates B. M. Cotton, Otho B. ix, as Bentley’s D;
Cotton Tib. A. ii (“the Coronation book”) as his ε; Cotton Otho C. v as
his φ; C. C. C. Camb. 197 as his C; King’s Library 1 D. ix as his A. His ξ
in B. xvii. 14 seems unrecognized.
These, of course, are no more than the rough materials of criticism.
Another copy of the N. T. has been carefully and curiously made available
for my use by the goodness of my friend Edwin Palmer, D.D., Archdeacon of
Oxford. It is numbered B. xvii. 6, and is a duplicate copy (without its
title-page) of the same printed book as B. xvii. 5. It is interleaved
throughout, and was prepared very early in the course of this undertaking,
inasmuch as Bentley describes it in an undated letter to Wetstein, which
the latter answered Nov. 3, 1716. In the printed text itself, both Greek
and Latin, as they stand in parallel columns, Bentley makes the
corrections which he at that period was willing to adopt. There is no
critical apparatus to justify his changes in the Latin version, but on the
blank leaves of the book he sets down his Greek authorities, always cited
by name, as _Alex._, _Cant._, _Rom._ (Cod. B.), _Ox._ in the Acts (Cod.
E), θ in St. Paul for Cod. Augiensis (F), though this last did not reach
him before 1718. Cod. C is sometimes called _Eph._, sometimes it is mixed
up with Wetstein’s other copies (1 Wetstein, 2 Wetstein, &c.). This most
interesting volume, therefore, contains the first draft of Bentley’s great
design, and must have been nearly in its present state when the
’Proposals’ were published in 1720, since the specimen chapter (Apoc.
xxii) which accompanied them is taken _verbatim_ from B. xvii. 6, save
that authorities are added to vindicate the alterations of the Latin text,
which is destitute of them in the printed book. Mr. Ellis too has printed
the Epistle to the Galatians from the same source, and this specimen also
produces much the same impression of meagreness and imperfection. It was
doubtless in some degree to remedy an apparent crudeness that cursive
copies were afterwards called in, as in B. xvii. 5 and in Walker’s Oxford
collections. The fact is that Bentley’s main principle, as set forth by
him from 1716 to 1720, that of substantial identity between the oldest
Greek and Latin copies, is more favoured by Cod. A, which he knew soonest
and best, than by any other really ancient documents, least of all by Cod.
B, with which he obtained fuller acquaintance in or about 1720. Our
Aristarchus then betook himself at intervals to cursive codices in the
vain hope of getting aid from them, and so lost his way at last in that
wide and pathless wilderness. We cannot but believe that nothing less than
the manifest impossibility of maintaining the principles which his
“Letter” of 1716 enunciated, and his ’Proposals’ of 1720 scarcely
modified, in the face of the evidence which his growing mass of collations
bore against them(205), could have had power enough to break off in the
midst that labour of love from which he had looked for undying fame(206).
7. The anonymous text and version of William Mace, said to have been a
Presbyterian minister (“The New Testament in Greek and English,” 2 vols.
8vo, 1729), are alike unworthy of serious notice, and have long since been
forgotten(207). And now original research in the science of Biblical
criticism, so far as the New Testament is concerned, seems to have left
the shores of England, to return no more for upwards of a century(208);
and we must look to Germany if we wish to trace the further progress of
investigations which our countrymen had so auspiciously begun. The first
considerable effort made on the Continent was:—
8. The New Testament of John Albert Bengel, 4to, Tübingen, 1734(209): his
“Prodromus N. T. Gr. rectè cautèque adornandi” had appeared as early as
1725. This devout and truly able man [1687-1752], who held the office
(whatever might be its functions) of Abbot of Alpirspach in the Lutheran
communion of Württemberg, though more generally known as an interpreter of
Scripture from his invaluable “Gnomon Novi Testamenti,” yet left the stamp
of his mind deeply imprinted on the criticism of the sacred volume. As a
collator his merits were not high; nearly all his sixteen codices have
required and obtained fresh examination from those who came after
him(210). His text, which he arranged in convenient paragraphs, as has
been said, is the earliest important specimen of intentional departure
from the received type; hence he imposes on himself the strange
restriction of admitting into it no reading (excepting in the Apocalypse)
which had not appeared in one or more of the editions that preceded his
own. He pronounces his opinion on other _select_ variations by placing
them in his lower margin with Greek numerals attached to them, according
as he judged them decidedly better (α), or somewhat more likely (β), than
those which stand in his text: or equal to them (γ); or a little (δ), or
considerably (ε), inferior. This notation has advantages which might well
have commended it to the attention of succeeding editors. In his
“Apparatus Criticus” also, at the end of his volume, he set the example,
now generally followed, of recording definitely the testimony in favour of
a received reading, as well as that against it.
But the peculiar importance of Bengel’s N. T. is due to the critical
principles developed therein. Not only was his native acuteness of great
service to him, when weighing the conflicting probabilities of internal
evidence, but in his fertile mind sprang up the germ of that theory of
_families_ or _recensions_, which was afterwards expanded by J. S. Semler
[1725-91], and grew to such formidable dimensions in the skilful hands of
Griesbach. An attentive student of the discrepant readings of the N. T.,
even in the limited extent they had hitherto been collected, could hardly
fail to discern that certain manuscripts, versions, and ecclesiastical
writers have a manifest affinity with each other; so that one of them
shall seldom be cited in support of a variation (not being a manifest and
gross error of the copyist), unless accompanied by several of its kindred.
The inference is direct and clear, that documents which thus withdraw
themselves from the general mass of authorities, must have sprung from
some common source, distinct from those which in characteristic readings
they but slightly resemble. It occurred, therefore, to Bengel as a hopeful
mode of making good progress in the criticism of the N. T., to reduce all
extant testimony into “companies, families, tribes, and nations,” and thus
to simplify the process of settling the sacred text by setting class over
against class, and trying to estimate the genius of each, and the relative
importance they may severally lay claim to. He wished to divide all extant
documents into two nations: the _Asiatic_, chiefly written in
Constantinople and its neighbourhood, which he was inclined to disparage;
and the _African_, comprising the few of a better type (“Apparatus
Criticus,” p. 669, 2nd edition, 1763). Various circumstances hindered
Bengel from working out his principle, among which he condescends to set
his dread of exposing his task to senseless ridicule(211); yet no one can
doubt that it comprehends the elements of what is both reasonable and
true; however difficult it has subsequently proved to adjust the details
of any consistent scheme. For the rest, Bengel’s critical verdicts, always
considered in relation to his age and opportunities, deserve strong
commendation. He saw the paramount worth of Cod. A, the only great uncial
then much known (N. T., Apparat. Crit., pp. 390-401). The high character
of the Latin version, and the necessity for revising its text by means of
manuscripts (_ibid._, p. 391), he readily conceded, after Bentley’s
example. His mean estimate of the Greek-Latin codices (Evan. Act. D; Act.
E; Paul. DFG) may not find equal favour in the eyes of all his admirers;
he pronounces them “re verâ bilingues;” which, for their perpetual and
wilful interpolations, “non pro codicibus sed pro rhapsodiis, haberi
debeant” (_ibid._, p. 386)(212).
9. The next step in advance was made by John James Wetstein [1693-1754], a
native of Basle, whose edition of the Greek New Testament (“cum
lectionibus variantibus Codicum MSS., Editionum aliarum, Versionum et
Patrum, necnon Commentario pleniore ex scriptoribus veteribus, Hebraeis,
Graecis, et Latinis, historiam et vim verborum illustrante”) appeared in
two volumes, folio, Amsterdam, 1751-2. The genius, the character, and (it
must in justice be added) the worldly fortunes of Wetstein were widely
different from those of the good Abbot of Alpirspach. His taste for
Biblical studies showed itself early. When ordained pastor at the age of
twenty he delivered a disputation, “De variis N. T. lectionibus,” and zeal
for this fascinating pursuit became at length with him a passion—the
master-passion which consoled and dignified a roving, troubled,
unprosperous life. In 1714 his eager search for manuscripts led him to
Paris, in 1715-16 and again in 1720 he visited England, and was employed
by Bentley in collecting materials for his projected edition, but he seems
to have imbibed few of that great man’s principles: the interval between
them, both in age and station, almost forbade much sympathy. On his return
home he gradually became suspected of Socinian tendencies, and it must be
feared with too much justice; so that in the end he was deposed from the
pastorate (1730), driven into exile, and after having been compelled to
serve in a position the least favourable to the cultivation of learning,
that of a military chaplain, he obtained at length (1733) a Professorship
among the Remonstrants at Amsterdam (in succession to the celebrated
Leclerc), and there continued till his death in 1754, having made his
third visit to England in 1746. His “Prolegomena,” first published in
1730, and afterwards, in an altered form, prefixed to his N. T.(213),
present a painful image both of the man and of his circumstances. His
restless energy, his undaunted industry, his violent temper, his love of
paradox, his assertion for himself of perfect freedom of thought, his
silly prejudice against Jesuits and bigots, his enmities, his wrongs, his
ill-requited labours, at once excite our respect and our pity: while they
all help to make his writings a sort of unconscious autobiography, rather
interesting than agreeable. _Non sic itur ad astra_, whether morally or
intellectually; yet Wetstein’s services to sacred literature were of no
common order. His philological annotations, wherein the matter and
phraseology of the inspired writers are illustrated by copious—too
copious—quotations from all kinds of authors, classical, Patristic, and
Rabbinical, have proved an inexhaustible storehouse from which later
writers have drawn liberally and sometimes without due acknowledgement;
but many of the passages are of such a tenor as (to use Tregelles’ very
gentle language respecting them) “only to excite surprise at their being
found on the same page as the text of the New Testament” (Account of
Printed Text, p. 76). The critical portion of his work, however, is far
more valuable, and in this department Wetstein must be placed in the very
first rank, inferior (if to any) to but one or two of the highest names.
He first cited the manuscripts under the notation by which they are
commonly known, his list already embracing A-O, 1-112 of the Gospels; A-G,
1-58 of the Acts; A-H, 1-60 of St. Paul; A-C, 1-28 of the Apocalypse; 1-24
Evangelistaria; 1-4 of the Apostolos. Of these Wetstein himself collated
about one hundred and two(214); if not as fully or accurately as is now
expected, yet with far greater care than had hitherto been usual: about
eleven were examined for him by other hands. On the versions and early
editions he has likewise bestowed great pains; and he improved upon
quotations from the Fathers. His text is that of Elzevir (1633), not very
exactly printed(215), and immediately below it he placed such readings of
his manuscripts as he judged preferable to those received. The readings
thus approved by Wetstein (which do not amount to five hundred, and those
chiefly in the Apocalypse) were inserted in the text of a Greek Testament
published in London, 1763, 2 vols., by W. Bowyer, the learned printer,
with a collection of critical conjectures annexed, which were afterwards
published separately.
Wetstein’s Prolegomena have also been reproduced by J. S. Semler (Halle,
1764), with good notes and facsimiles of certain manuscripts, and more
recently, in a compressed and modernized form, by J. A. Lotze (Rotterdam,
1831), a book which neither for design nor execution can be much praised.
The truth is that both the style and the subject-matter of much that
Wetstein wrote are things of the past. In his earlier edition of his
Prolegomena (1730) he had spoken of the oldest Greek uncial copies as they
deserve; he was even disposed to take Cod. A as the basis of his text. By
the time his N. T. was ready, twenty years later, he had come to include
it, with all the older codices of the original, under a general charge of
being conformed to the Latin version. That such a tendency may be detected
in some of the codices accompanied by a Latin translation, is both
possible in itself, and not inconsistent with their general spirit; but he
has scattered abroad his imputations capriciously and almost at random, so
as greatly to diminish the weight of his own decisions. Cod. A, in
particular, has been fully cleared of the charge of Latinizing by Woide,
in his excellent Prolegomena (§ 6). His thorough contempt for that critic
prevented Wetstein from giving adequate attention to Bengel’s theory of
families; indeed he can hardly be said to have rejected a scheme which he
scorned to investigate with patience. On the other hand no portion of his
labours is more valuable than the “Animadversiones et Cautiones ad examen
variarum lectionum N. T. necessariae” (N. T., Tom. ii. pp. 851-74). In
this tract his natural good sense and extensive knowledge of authorities
of every class have gone far to correct that impetuous temperament which
was ever too ready to substitute plausible conjecture in the room of
ascertained facts.
During the twenty years immediately ensuing on the publication of
Wetstein’s volumes, little was attempted in the way of enlarging or
improving the domain he had secured for Biblical science. In England the
attention of students was directed, and on the whole successfully, to the
criticism of the Hebrew Scriptures; in Germany, the younger (J. D.)
Michaelis [1717-91] reigned supreme, and he seems to have deemed it the
highest effort of scholarship to sit in judgement on the labours of
others. In process of time, however, the researches of John James
Griesbach [1745-1812], a native of Hesse Darmstadt and a pupil of Semler,
and J. A. Ernesti [1707-81] (whose manual, “Institutio Interpretis N. T.,”
1761, has not long been superseded), began to attract general notice. Like
Wetstein, he made a literary tour in England early in life (1769), and
with far more profit; returning to Halle as a Professor, he published
before he was thirty (1774-5) his first edition of the N. T., which
contained the well-defined embryo of his future and more elaborate
speculations. It will be convenient to reserve the examination of his
views until we have described the investigations of several collators who
unknowingly (and in one instance, no doubt unwillingly) were busy in
gathering stores which he was to turn to his own use.
10. Christian Frederick Matthaei, a Thuringian [1744-1811], was appointed,
on the recommendation of his tutor Ernesti, to the Professorship of
Classical Literature at Moscow: so far as philology is concerned, he
probably merited Bp. Middleton’s praise, as “the most accurate scholar who
ever edited the N. T.” (Doctrine of the Greek Article, p. 244, 3rd
edition.) At Moscow he found a large number of Greek manuscripts, both
Biblical and Patristic, originally brought from Athos, quite uncollated,
and almost entirely unknown in the west of Europe. With laudable
resolution he set himself to examine them, and gradually formed the scheme
of publishing an edition of the New Testament by the aid of materials so
precious and abundant. All authors that deserve that honourable name may
be presumed to learn not a little, even on the subject they know best,
while preparing an important work for the public eye; but Matthaei was as
yet ignorant of the first principles of the critical art; and beginning
thus late, there was much, and that of a very elementary character, which
he never understood at all. When he commenced writing he had not seen the
volumes of Mill or Wetstein; and to this significant fact we must impute
that inability which clave to him to the last, of discriminating the
relative age and value of his own or others’ codices. The palaeographical
portion of the science, indeed, he gradually acquired from the study of
his documents, and through the many facsimiles of them he represents in
his edition; but what can be thought of his judgement, when he persisted
in asserting the intrinsic superiority of Cod. 69 of the Acts to the great
uncials AC (N. T., Tom. xii. p. 222)(216)? Hence it results that
Matthaei’s text, which of course he moulded on his own views, must be held
in slight esteem: his services as a collator comprehend his whole claim
(and that no trifling one) to our thankful regard. To him solely we are
indebted for Evan. V; 237-259; Act. 98-107; Paul. 113-124; Apoc. 47-502
(i.e. r); Evst. 47-57; Apost. 13-20; nearly all at Moscow: the whole
seventy(217), together with the citations of Scripture in thirty-four
manuscripts of Chrysostom(218), being so fully and accurately collated,
that the reader need not be at a loss whether any particular copy supports
or opposes the reading in the common text. Matthaei’s further services in
connexion with Cod. G Paul, and a few others (Act. 69, &c.) have been
noticed in their proper places. To his Greek text was annexed the Latin
Vulgate (the only version, in its present state, he professes to regard,
Tom. xi. p. xii) from the Cod. Demidovianus. The first volume of this
edition appeared in 1782, after it had been already eight years in
preparation: this comprised the Catholic Epistles. The rest of the work
was published at intervals during the next six years, in eleven more thin
parts 8vo, the whole series being closed by SS. Matthew and Mark in 1788.
Each volume has a Preface, much descriptive matter, and facsimiles of
manuscripts (twenty-nine in all), the whole being in complete and almost
hopeless disorder, and the general title-page absurdly long. Hence his
critical principles (if such they may be termed) must be picked up
piecemeal; and it is not very pleasant to observe the sort of influence
which hostile controversy exercised over his mind and temper. While yet
fresh at his task (1782), anticipating the fair fame his most profitable
researches had so well earned, Matthaei is frank, calm, and rational: even
at a later period J. D. Michaelis is, in his estimation, the keenest of
living judges of codices, and he says so the rather “quod ille vir
doctissimus multis modis me, _quâ de causâ ipse ignoro_, partim jocosè,
partim seriò, vexavit” (Tom. ii, 1788, p. xxxi). Bengel, whose sentiments
were very dissimilar from those of the Moscow Professor, “pro acumine,
diligentiâ et religione suâ,” would have arrived at other conclusions, had
his Augsburg codices been better (_ibid._, p. xxx). But for Griesbach and
his recension-theory no terms of insult are strong enough; “risum vel adeo
pueris debet ille Halensis criticus,” who never saw, “_ut credibile est_,”
a manuscript even of the tenth century (_ibid._, p. xxiii), yet presumes
to dictate to those who have collated seventy. The unhappy consequence
was, that one who had taken up this employment in an earnest and candid
spirit, possessed with the simple desire to promote the study of sacred
literature, could devise no fitter commencement for his latest Preface
than this: “Laborem igitur molestum invidiosum et infamem, inter convicia
ranarum et latratus canum, aut ferreâ patientiâ aut invictâ pertinaciâ his
quindecim annis vel sustinui, vel utcunque potui perfeci, vel denique et
fastidio et taedio, ut fortasse non nulli opinantur, deposui et abjeci”
(Tom. i, Praef. p. 1): he could find no purer cause for thankfulness, than
(what we might have imagined but a very slight mercy) that he had never
been commended by those “of whom to be dispraised is no small praise;” or
(to use his own more vigorous language) “quod nemo scurra ... nemo denique
de grego novorum theologorum, hanc qualemcunque operam meam ausus est ore
impuro suo, laudeque contumeliosâ comprobare.” Matthaei’s second edition
in three volumes (destitute of the Latin version and most of the critical
notes) bears date 1803-7(219). For some cause, now not easy to understand,
he hardly gave to this second edition the advantages of his studies during
the fifteen years which had elapsed since he completed his first. We saw
his labours bestowed on the Zittau N. T. in 1801-2 (Evan. 605). On the
last leaf of the third volume of his second edition, writing from Moscow
in May, 1805, he speaks of a book containing collations of no less than
twenty-four manuscripts, partly fresh, partly corrected, which, when he
returned into Russia, he delivered to Augustus Schumann, a bookseller at
Ronneburg (in Saxe Altenburg), to be published in close connexion with his
second edition against the Easter Fair at Leipzig in 1805. Another book
contained extracts from St. Chrysostom with a commentary and index, to be
published at the same time, and both at Schumann’s risk. “Utrum isti libri
jam prodierint necne,” our author adds pathetically, “nondum factus sum
certior. Certe id vehementer opto.” But in 1805 evil times were hastening
upon Germany, and so unfortunately for the poor man and for textual
students these collections have disappeared and left no trace behind.
10.a The next, and a far less considerable contribution to our knowledge
of manuscripts of the N. T., was made by Francis Karl Alter [1749-1804], a
Jesuit, born in Silesia, and Professor of Greek at Vienna. His plan was
novel, and, to those who are compelled to use his edition (N. T. Graecum,
ad Codicem Vindobonensem Graecè expressum, 8vo, Vienna, 2 tom., 1786-7),
inconvenient to the last degree. Adopting for his standard a valuable, but
not very ancient or remarkable, manuscript in the Imperial Library (Evan.
218, Act. 65, Paul. 57, Apoc. 83), he prints this copy at full length,
retaining even the ν ἐφελκυστικόν when it is found in his model, but not
(as it would seem) all the itacisms or errors of the scribe, conforming in
such cases to Stephen’s edition of 1546. With this text he collates in
separate Appendices twenty-one other manuscripts of the same great
Library, comprising twelve copies of the Gospels (Codd. N, a fragment, 3,
76, 77, 108, 123, 124, 125, 219, 220, 224, 225); six of the Acts, &c. (3,
43, 63, 64, 66, 67); seven of St. Paul (3, 49, 67-71); three of the
Apocalypse (34, 35, 36), and two Evangelistaria (45, 46). He also gives
readings from Wilkins’ Coptic version, four Slavonic codices and one Old
Latin (_i_). In employing this ill-digested mass, it is necessary to turn
to a different place for every manuscript to be consulted, and Alter’s
silence in any passages must be understood to indicate resemblance to his
standard, Evan. 218, and not to the common text. As this silence is very
often clearly due to the collator’s mere oversight, Griesbach set the
example of citing these manuscripts in such cases within marks of
parenthesis: thus “218 (108, 220)” indicates that the reading in question
is certainly found in Cod. 218, and (so far as we may infer _ex Alteri
silentio_) not improbably in the other two. Most of these Vienna codices
were about the same time examined rather slightly by Andrew Birch.
11. This eminent person, who afterwards bore successively the titles of
Bishop of Lolland, Falster, and Aarhuus, in the Lutheran communion
established in Denmark, was one of a company of learned men sent by the
liberal care of Christian VII to examine Biblical manuscripts in various
countries. Adler pursued his Oriental studies at Rome and elsewhere; D. G.
Moldenhawer and O. G. Tychsen (the famous Orientalist of Rostock) were
sent into Spain in 1783-4; Birch travelled on the same good errand in
1781-3 through Italy and Germany. The combined results of their
investigations were arranged and published by Birch, whose folio edition
of the Four Gospels (also in 4to) with Stephen’s text of 1550(220), and
the various readings contributed by himself and his associates, full
descriptive Prolegomena and facsimiles of seven manuscripts (Codd. S, 157
Evan.; and five in Syriac), appeared at Copenhagen in 1788. Seven years
afterwards (1795) a fire destroyed the Royal Printing-house, the type,
paper, and unsold stock of the first volume, the collations of the rest of
the N. T. having very nearly shared the same fate. These poor fragments
were collected by Birch into two small 8vo volumes, those relating to the
Acts and Epistles in 1798, to the Apocalypse (with facsimiles of Codd. 37,
42) in 1800. In 1801 he revised and re-edited the various readings of the
Gospels, in a form to correspond with those of the rest of the N. T.
Nothing can be better calculated to win respect and confidence than the
whole tone of Birch’s several Prolegomena: he displays at once a proper
sense of the difficulties of his task, and a consciousness that he had
done his utmost to conquer them(221). It is indeed much to be regretted
that, for some cause he does not wish to explain, he accomplished but
little for Cod. B; many of the manuscripts on his long list were beyond
question examined but very superficially; yet he was almost the first to
open to us the literary treasures of the Vatican, of Florence, and of
Venice. He more or less inspected the uncials Cod. B, Codd. ST of the
Gospels, Cod. L of the Acts and Epistles. His catalogue of cursives
comprises Codd. 127-225 of the Gospels; Codd. 63-7, 70-96 of the Acts;
Codd. 67-71, 77-112 of St. Paul; Codd. 33-4, 37-46 of the Apocalypse;
Evangelistaria 35-39; Apostolos 7, 8: in all 191 copies, a few of which
were thoroughly collated (e.g. Evan. S, 127, 131, 157, Evst. 36). Of
Adler’s labours we have spoken already; they too are incorporated in
Birch’s work, and prefaced with a short notice (Birch, Proleg. p. lxxxv)
by their author, a real and modest scholar. Moldenhawer’s portion of the
common task was discharged in another spirit. Received at the Escurial
with courtesy and good-will, his colleague Tyschen and he spent four whole
months in turning over a collection of 760 Greek manuscripts, of which
only twenty related to the Greek Testament. They lacked neither leisure,
nor opportunity, nor competent knowledge; but they were full of dislike
for Spain and its religion, of overweening conceit, and of implicit trust
in Griesbach and his recensions. The whole paper contributed by
Moldenhawer to Birch’s Prolegomena (pp. lxi-lxxxiv) is in substance very
disappointing, while its arrogance is almost intolerable. What he effected
for other portions of the N. T. I have not been able to trace (226, 228
Evan., which also contain the Acts and Epistles, are but nominally on
Scholz’s list for those books); the fire at Copenhagen may probably have
destroyed his notes. Of the Gospels he collated eight codices (226-233),
and four Evangelistaria (40-43), most of them being dismissed, after a
cursory review, with some expression of hearty contempt. To Evann. 226,
229, 230 alone was he disposed to pay any attention; of the rest, whether
“he soon restored them to their primitive obscurity” (p. lxxi), or “bade
them sweet and holy rest among the reliques of Saints and Martyrs” (p.
lxvii), he may be understood to say, once for all, “Omnino nemo, qui horum
librorum rationem ac indolem ... perspectam habet, ex iis lectionis
varietatem operose eruere aggredietur, nec, si quam inde conquisiverit,
operae pretium fecisse a peritis arbitris existimabitur” (p. lxxiv). It
was not thus that Matthaei dealt with the manuscripts at Moscow.
12. Such were the materials ready for Griesbach’s use when he projected
his second and principal edition of the Greek Testament (vol. i. 1796,
vol. ii. 1806). Not that he was backward in adding to the store of various
readings by means of his own diligence. His “Symbolae Criticae(222)” (vol.
i. 1785, vol. ii. 1793) contained, together with the readings extracted
from Origen, collations, in whole or part, of many copies of various
portions of the N. T., Latin as well as Greek. Besides inspecting Codd. AD
(Evann.), and carefully examining Cod. C(223), he consulted no less than
twenty-six codices (including GL) of the Gospels, ten (including E) of the
Acts, &c., fifteen (including DEH) of St. Paul, one of the Apocalypse
(Cod. 29) twelve Lectionaries of the Gospels, and two of the Apostolos,
far the greater part of them being deposited in England. It was not,
however, his purpose to exhibit in his N. T. (designed, as it was, for
general use) all the readings he had himself recorded elsewhere, much less
the whole mass accumulated by the pains of Mill or Wetstein, Matthaei or
Birch. The distinctive end at which he aims is to form such a selection
from the matter their works contain, as to enable the theological student
to decide for himself on the genuineness or corruption of any given
reading, by the aid of principles which he devotes his best efforts to
establish. Between the text (in which departures from the Elzevir edition
of 1624 are generally indicated by being printed in smaller type(224)) and
the critical notes at the foot of each page, intervenes a narrow space or
inner margin, to receive those portions of the common text which Griesbach
has rejected, and such variations of his authorities as he judges to be of
equal weight with the received readings which he retains, or but little
inferior to them. These decisions he intimates by several symbols, not
quite so simple as those employed by Bengel, but conceived in a similar
spirit; and he has carried his system somewhat further in his small or
manual edition, published at Leipzig in 1805, which may be conceived to
represent his last thoughts with regard to the recension of the Greek text
of the N. T. But though we may trace some slight discrepancies of opinion
between his earliest(225) and his latest works(226), as might well be
looked for in a literary career of forty years, yet the theory of his
youth was maintained, and defended, and temperately applied by Griesbach
even to the last. From Bengel and Semler he had taken up the belief that
manuscripts, versions, and ecclesiastical writers divide themselves, with
respect to the character of their testimony, into races or families. This
principle he strove to reduce to practice by marshalling all his
authorities under their respective heads, and then regarding the evidence,
not of individuals, but of the classes to which they belong. The advantage
of some such arrangement is sufficiently manifest, if only it could be
made to rest on grounds in themselves certain, or, at all events, fairly
probable. We should then possess some better guide in our choice between
conflicting readings, than the very rough and unsatisfactory process of
counting the _number_ of witnesses produced on either side. It is not that
such a mode of conducting critical enquiries would not be very convenient,
that Griesbach’s theory is universally abandoned by modern scholars, but
because there is no valid reason for believing it to be true.
At the onset of his labours, indeed, this acute and candid enquirer was
disposed to divide all extant materials into five or six different
families; he afterwards limited them to three, the Alexandrian, the
Western, and the Byzantine recensions. The standard of the Alexandrian
text he conceived to be Origen; who, although his works were written in
Palestine, was assumed to have brought with him into exile copies of
Scripture, similar to those used in his native city. To this family would
belong a few manuscripts of the earliest date, and confessedly of the
highest character, Codd. ABC, Cod. L of the Gospels, the Egyptian and some
lesser versions. The Western recension would survive in Cod. D of the
Gospels and Acts, in the other ancient copies which contain a Latin
translation, in the Old Latin and Vulgate versions, and in the Latin
Fathers. The vast majority of manuscripts (comprising perhaps
nineteen-twentieths of the whole), together with the larger proportion of
versions and Patristic writings, were grouped into the Byzantine class, as
having prevailed generally in the Patriarchate of Constantinople. To this
last class Griesbach hardly professed to accord as much weight as to
either of the others, nor, if he had done so, would the result have been
materially different. The joint testimony of two classes was, _ceteris
paribus_, always to prevail; and since the very few documents which
comprise the Alexandrian and Western recensions seldom agree with the
Byzantine even when at variance with each other, the numerous codices
which make up the third family would thus have about as much share in
fixing the text of Scripture, as the poor citizens whose host was included
in one of Servius Tullius’ lower classes possessed towards
counterbalancing the votes of the wealthy few that composed his first or
second(227).
Inasmuch as the manuscripts on which our received text was based must,
beyond question, be referred to his Byzantine family, wide as were the
variations of Griesbach’s revised text from that of Elzevir(228), had his
theory been pushed to its legitimate consequences, the changes it required
would have been greater still. The very plan of his work, however, seemed
to reserve a slight preference for the received text _as such_, in cases
of doubt and difficulty; and this editor, with a calmness and sagacity
which may well be called judicial, was usually disposed to relax his stern
mechanical law when persuaded by reasons founded on internal
probabilities, which (as we cheerfully admit) few men have been found able
to estimate with so much patience and discrimination. The plain fact is,
that while disciples like Moldenhawer and persons who knew even less than
he were regarding Griesbach’s system as self-evidently true, their wiser
master must have had many a misgiving as to the safety of that imposing
structure his rare ingenuity had built upon the sand. The very essence of
his theory consisted in there being not two distinct families, but
_three_; the majority deciding in all cases of dispute. Yet he hardly
attempted, certainly neither he nor any one after him succeeded in the
attempt, to separate the Alexandrian from the Western family, without
resorting to arguments which would prove that there are as many classes as
there are manuscripts of early date. The supposed accordance of the
readings of Origen, so elaborately scrutinized for this purpose by
Griesbach, with Cod. A, on which our editor lays the greatest stress, has
been shown by Archbishop Laurence (Remarks on Griesbach’s Systematic
Classification, 1814) to be in a high degree imaginary(229). It must have
been in anticipation of some such researches, and in a partial knowledge
of their sure results, that Griesbach was driven to that violent and most
unlikely hypothesis, that Cod. A follows the Byzantine class of
authorities in the Gospels, the Western in the Acts and Catholic Epistles,
and the Alexandrian in St. Paul.
It seems needless to dwell longer on speculations which, however
attractive and once widely received, will scarcely again find an advocate.
Griesbach’s text can no longer be regarded as satisfactory, though it is
far less objectionable than such a system as his would have made it in
rash or unskilful hands. His industry, his moderation, his fairness to
opponents, who (like Matthaei) had shown him little forbearance, we may
all imitate to our profit. His logical acuteness and keen intellectual
perception fall to the lot of few; and though they may have helped to lead
him into error, and have even kept him from retracing his steps, yet on
the whole they were worthily exercised in the good cause of promoting a
knowledge of God’s truth, and of keeping alive, in an evil and unbelieving
age, an enlightened interest in Holy Scripture, and the studies which it
serves to consecrate.
13. Of a widely different order of mind was John Martin Augustine Scholz
[d. 1852], Roman Catholic Dean of Theology in the mixed University of
Bonn. It would have been well for the progress of sacred learning and for
his own reputation had the accuracy and ability of this editor borne some
proportion to his zeal and obvious anxiety to be useful. His first essay
was his “Curae Criticae in historiam textûs Evangeliorum,” in two
dissertations, Heidelberg, 4to, 1820, containing notices of forty-eight
Paris manuscripts (nine of them hitherto unknown) of which he had fully
collated seventeen: the second Dissertation is devoted to Cod. K of the
Gospels. In 1823 appeared his “Biblisch-Kritische Reise,” Leipsic, 8vo,
Biblio-Critical Travels in France, Switzerland, Italy, Palestine and the
Archipelago, which Schulz laid under contribution for his improved edition
of Griesbach’s first volume(230). Scholz’s “N. T. Graece,” 4to, was
published at Leipsic, vol. i, 1830 (Gospels); vol. ii, 1836.
The accession of fresh materials made known in these works is almost
marvellous: Scholz was the first to indicate Codd. 260-469 of the Gospels;
110-192 of the Acts, &c.; 125-246 of St. Paul; 51-89 of the Apocalypse;
51-181 Evangelistaria; 21-58 Lectionaries of the Apostolos; in all 616
cursive codices. His additions to the list of the uncials comprise only
the three fragments of the Gospels Wa Y and the Vatican leaves of N. Of
those examined previously by others he paid most attention to Evan. KX (M
also for its synaxaria), and G (now L) Act., Paul.; he moreover inspected
slightly eighty-two cursive codices of the Gospels after Wetstein, Birch,
and the rest; collated entire five (Codd. 4, 19, 25, 28, 33), and twelve
in the greater part, adding much to our knowledge of the important Cod.
22. In the Acts, &c., he inspected twenty-seven of those known before,
partially collated two; in St. Paul he collated partially two, slightly
twenty-nine; in the Apocalypse sixteen, cursorily enough it would seem
(_see_ Codd. 21-3): of the Lectionaries he touched more or less thirteen
of the Gospels, four of the Apostolos. On turning to the 616 codices
Scholz placed on the list for the first time, we find that he collated
entire but thirteen (viz. five of the Gospels, three of the Acts, &c.,
three of St. Paul, one each of the Apocalypse and Evangelistaria): a few
of the rest he examined throughout the greater part; many in only a few
chapters; while some were set down from printed Catalogues, whose
plenteous errors we have used our best endeavours to correct in the
present volume, so far as the means were within our reach.
Yet, after making a large deduction from our first impressions of the
_amount_ of labour performed by Scholz, enough and more than enough would
remain to entitle him to our lasting gratitude, if it were possible to
place any tolerable reliance on the correctness of his results. Those who
are, however superficially, acquainted with the nature of such pursuits,
will readily believe that faultless accuracy in representing myriads of
minute details is not to be looked for from the most diligent and careful
critic. Oversights will mar the perfection of the most highly finished of
human efforts; but if adequate care and pains shall have been bestowed on
detecting them, such blemishes as still linger unremoved are no real
subject of reproach, and do not greatly lessen the value of the work which
contains them. But in the case of Scholz’s Greek Testament the fair
indulgence we must all hope for is abused beyond the bounds of reason or
moderation. The student who has had much experience of his volumes,
especially if he has ever compared the collations there given with the
original manuscripts, will never dream of resorting to them for
information he can expect to gain elsewhere, or rest with confidence on a
statement of fact merely because Scholz asserts it. J. Scott Porter
(Principles of Textual Criticism, Belfast, 1848, pp. 263-66) and
Tischendorf (N. T., Proleg. c-cii, 7th edition) have dwelt upon his
strange blunders, his blind inconsistencies, and his habitual practice of
copying from his predecessors without investigation and without
acknowledgement; so that it is needless for us to repeat or dwell on that
ungracious task(231); but it is our duty to put the student once for all
on his guard against what could not fail to mislead him, and to express
our sorrow that twelve years and more of hard and persevering toil should,
through mere heedlessness, have been nearly thrown away.
As was natural in a pupil of J. L. Hug of Freyburg (_see_ vol. i. p. 111),
who had himself tried to build a theory of recensions on very slender
grounds, Dr. Scholz attempted to settle the text of the N. T. upon
principles which must be regarded as a modification of those of Griesbach.
In his earliest work, like that great critic, he had been disposed to
divide all extant authorities into five separate classes; but he soon
reduced them to two, the Alexandrian and the Constantinopolitan. In the
Alexandrian family he included the whole of Griesbach’s Western recension,
from which indeed it seems vain to distinguish it by any broad line of
demarcation: to the other family he referred the great mass of more recent
documents which compose Griesbach’s third or Byzantine class; and to this
family he was inclined to give the preference over the other, as well from
the internal excellency of its readings, as because it represents the
uniform text which had become traditional throughout the Greek Church.
That such a standard, public, and authorized text existed he seems to have
taken for granted without much enquiry. “Codices qui hoc nomen
[Constantinopolitanum] habent,” he writes, “parum inter se dissentiunt.
Conferas, quaeso, longè plerosque quos huic classi adhaerere dixi, atque
lectiones diversas viginti trigintave in totidem capitibus vix reperies,
unde conjicias eos esse accuratissimè descriptos, eorumque antigrapha
parum inter se discrepasse” (N. T., Proleg., vol. i. § 55). It might have
occurred to one who had spent so many years in studying Greek manuscripts,
that this marvellous concord between the different Byzantine witnesses
(which is striking enough, no doubt, as we turn over the pages of his
Greek Testament) is after all due to nothing so much as to the haste and
carelessness of collators. The more closely the cursive copies of
Scripture are examined, the more does the individual character of each of
them become developed. With certain points of general resemblance, whereby
they are distinguished from the older documents of the Alexandrian class,
they abound with mutual variations so numerous and perpetual as to vouch
for the independent origin of nearly all of them, and their exact study
has “swept away at once and for ever” (Tregelles’ “Account of Printed
Text,” p. 180) the fancy of a standard Constantinopolitan text, and every
inference that had been grounded upon its presumed existence. If (as we
firmly believe) the less ancient codices ought to have their proper weight
and appreciable influence in fixing the true text of Scripture, our
favourable estimate of them must rest on other arguments than Scholz has
urged in their behalf.
Since this editor’s system of recensions differed thus widely from
Griesbach’s, in suppressing altogether one of his three classes, and in
yielding to the third, which the other slighted, a decided preference over
its surviving rival, it might have been imagined that the consequences of
such discrepancy in theory would have been strongly marked in their
effects on his text. That such is not the case, at least to any
considerable extent (especially in his second volume), must be imputed in
part to Griesbach’s prudent reserve in carrying out his principles to
extremity, but yet more to Scholz’s vacillation and evident weakness of
judgement. In fact, on his last visit to England in 1845, he distributed
among Biblical students here a “Commentatio de virtutibus et vitiis
utriusque codicum N. T. familiae,” that he had just delivered on the
occasion of some Encaenia at Bonn, in which (after various statements that
display either ignorance or inattention respecting the ordinary phenomena
of manuscripts which in a veteran collator is really unaccountable(232))
he declares his purpose, chiefly it would seem from considerations of
internal evidence, that if ever it should be his lot to prepare another
edition of the New Testament, “se plerasque codicum Alexandrinorum
lectiones illas quas in margine interiore textui editionis suae
Alexandrinas dixit, in textum recepturum” (p. 14). The text which its
constructor distrusted, can have but small claim on the faith of others.
14. “Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine, Carolus Lachmannus recensuit,
Philippus Buttmannus Ph. F. Graecae lectionis auctoritates apposuit” is
the simple title-page of a work, by one of the most eminent philologists
of his time, the first volume of which (containing the Gospels) appeared
at Berlin (8vo), 1842, the second and concluding one in 1850, whose
boldness and originality have procured it, as well for good as for ill, a
prominent place in the history of the sacred text. Lachmann had published
as early as 1831 a small edition containing only the text of the New
Testament, with a list of the readings wherein he differs from that of
Elzevir, preceded by a notice of his plan not exceeding a few lines in
length, itself so obscurely worded that even to those who happened to
understand his meaning it must have read like a riddle whose solution they
had been told beforehand; and referring us for fuller information to what
he strangely considered “a more convenient place,” a German periodical of
the preceding year’s date(233). Authors who take so little pains to
explain their fundamental principles of criticism, especially if (as in
the present case) these are novel and unexpected, can hardly wonder when
their drift and purpose are imperfectly apprehended; so that a little
volume, which we now learn had cost Lachmann five years of thought and
labour, was confounded, even by the learned, with the mass of common,
hasty, and superficial reprints. Nor was the difficulty much removed on
the publication of the first volume of his larger book. It was then seen,
indeed, how clean a sweep he had made of the great majority of Greek
manuscripts usually cited in critical editions:—in fact he rejects all in
a heap excepting Codd. ABC, the fragments PQTZ (and for some purposes D)
of the Gospels; DE of the Acts only; DGH of St. Paul. Yet even now he
treats the scheme of his work as if it were already familiarly known, and
spends his time in discursive controversy with his opponents and
reviewers, whom he chastises with a heartiness which in this country we
imputed to downright malice, till Tregelles was so good as to instruct us
that in Lachmann it was but “a tone of pleasantry,” the horseplay of
coarse German wit (Account of Printed Text, p. 112). The supplementary
Prolegomena which preface his second volume of 1850 are certainly more
explicit: both from what they teach and from the practical examples they
contain, they have probably helped others, as well as myself, in gaining a
nearer insight into his whole design.
It seems, then, to have been Lachmann’s purpose, discarding the slightest
regard for the _textus receptus_ as such, to endeavour to bring the sacred
text back to the condition in which it existed during the fourth century,
and this in the first instance by documentary aid alone, without regarding
for the moment whether the sense produced were probable or improbable,
good or bad; but looking solely to his authorities, and following them
implicitly wheresoever the numerical majority might carry him. For
accomplishing this purpose he possessed but one Greek copy written as
early as the fourth century, Cod. B; and of that he not only knew less
than has since come to light (and even this is not quite sufficient), but
he did not avail himself of Bartolocci’s papers on Cod. B, to which Scholz
had already drawn attention. His other codices were not of the fourth
century at all, but varying in date from the fifth (ACT) to the ninth (G);
and of these few (of C more especially) his assistant or colleague
Buttmann’s representation was loose, careless, and unsatisfactory. Of the
Greek Fathers, the scanty Greek remains of Irenaeus and the works of
Origen are all that are employed; but considerable weight is given to the
readings of the Latin version. The Vulgate is printed at length as
revised, after a fashion, by Lachmann himself, from the Codices Fuldensis
and Amiatinus: the Old Latin manuscripts _abc_, together with the Latin
versions accompanying the Greek copies which he receives(234), are treated
as primary authorities: of the Western Fathers he quotes Cyprian, Hilary
of Poictiers, Lucifer of Cagliari, and in the Apocalypse Primasius also.
The Syriac and Egyptian translations he considers himself excused from
attending to, by reason of his ignorance of their respective languages.
The consequence of this voluntary poverty where our manuscript treasures
are so abundant, of this deliberate rejection of the testimony of many
hundreds of documents, of various countries, dates, and characters, may be
told in a few words. Lachmann’s text seldom rests on more than four Greek
codices, very often on three, not unfrequently on two; in Matt. vi.
20-viii. 5, and in 165 out of the 405 verses of the Apocalypse, on but
_one_. It would have been a grievous thing indeed if we really had no
better means of ascertaining the true readings of the New Testament than
are contained in this editor’s scanty roll; and he who, for the sake of
some private theory, shall presume to shut out from his mind the great
mass of information God’s Providence has preserved for our use, will
hardly be thought to have chosen the most hopeful method for bringing
himself or others to the knowledge of the truth.
But supposing, for the sake of argument, that Lachmann had availed himself
to the utmost of the materials he has selected, and that they were
adequate for the purpose of leading him up to the state of the text as it
existed in the fourth century, would he have made any real advance in the
criticism of the sacred volume? Is it not quite evident, even from the
authorities contained in his notes, that copies in that age varied as
widely—nay even more widely—than they did in later times? that the main
corruptions and interpolations which perplex the student in Cod. Bezae and
its Latin allies, crept in at a period anterior to the age of Constantine?
From the Preface to his second volume (1850) it plainly appears (what
might, perhaps, have been gathered by an esoteric pupil from the Preface
to his first, pp. v, xxxiii), that he regarded this fourth century text,
founded as it is on documentary evidence alone, as purely provisional; as
mere subject-matter on which individual _conjecture_ might advantageously
operate (Praef. 1850, p. v). Of the many examples wherewith he illustrates
his principle we must be content with producing one, as an ample specimen
both of Lachmann’s plan and of his judgement in reducing it to practice.
In Matt. xxvii. 28 for ἐκδύσαντες, which gives a perfectly good sense, and
seems absolutely required by τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ in ver. 31, _BDabc_ read
ἐνδύσαντες, a variation either borrowed from Mark xv. 17, or more probably
a mere error of the pen. Had the whole range of manuscripts, versions, and
Fathers been searched, no other testimony in favour of ἐνδύσαντες could
have been found save Cod. 157, _ff_2 and _q_ of the Old Latin, the Latin
version of Origen, and a few codices of Chrysostom(235). Against these we
might set a vast company of witnesses, exceeding those on the opposite
side by full a hundred to one; yet because Cod. A and the Latin Vulgate
alone are on Lachmann’s list, he is compelled by his system to place
ἐνδύσαντες in the text as the reading of his authorities, reserving to
himself the privilege of removing it on the ground of its palpable
impropriety: and all this because he wishes to keep the “recensio” of the
text distinct from the “emendatio” of the sense (Praef. 1850, p. vi).
Surely it were a far more reasonable, as well as a more convenient
process, to have reviewed from the first the entire case on both sides,
and if the documentary evidence were not unevenly balanced, or internal
evidence strongly preponderated in one scale, to place in the text once
for all the reading which upon the whole should appear best suited to the
passage, and most sufficiently established by authority.
But while we cannot accord to Lachmann the praise of wisdom in his design,
or of over-much industry and care in the execution of it (_see_
Tischendorf, N. T., Proleg. pp. cvii-cxii), yet we would not dissemble or
extenuate the power his edition has exerted over candid and enquiring
minds. Earnest, single-hearted, a true scholar both in spirit and
accomplishments, he has had the merit of restoring the Latin versions to
their proper rank in the criticism of the New Testament, which since the
failure of Bentley’s schemes they seem to have partially lost. No one will
hereafter claim for the received text any further weight than it is
entitled to as the representative of the manuscripts on which it was
constructed: and the principle of recurring exclusively to a few ancient
documents in preference to the many (so engaging from its very
simplicity), which may be said to have virtually originated with him, has
not been without influence with some who condemn the most strongly his
hasty and one-sided, though consistent, application of it. Lachmann died
in 1851.
15. “Novum Testamentum Graece. Ad antiquos testes denuo recensuit,
apparatum criticum omni studio perfectum apposuit, commentationem
isagogicam praetexuit Aenoth. Frid. Const. Tischendorf, editio octava:”
Lipsiae, 1865-1872. This is beyond question the most full and
comprehensive edition of the Greek Testament existing; it contains the
results of the latest collations and discoveries, and as copious a body of
various readings as is compatible with the design of adapting it for
general use: though Tischendorf’s notes are not sufficiently minute (as
regards the cursive manuscripts) to supersede the need of perpetually
consulting the labours of preceding critics. His earliest enterprise(236)
in connexion with Biblical studies was a small edition of the New
Testament (12mo, 1841), completed at Leipzig in 1840, which, although
greatly inferior to his subsequent works, merited the encouragement which
it procured for him, and the praises of D. Schulz, which he very
gratefully acknowledged. Soon afterwards he set out on his first literary
journey: “quod quidem tam pauper suscepi,” he ingenuously declares, “ut
pro paenula quam portabam solvere non possem;” and, while busily engaged
on Cod. C, prepared three other editions of the New Testament, which
appeared in 1843 at Paris, all of them being booksellers’ speculations on
which, perhaps, he set no high value; one inscribed to Guizot, the
Protestant statesman, a second (having the Greek text placed in a parallel
column with the Latin Vulgate, and somewhat altered to suit it) dedicated
to Denys Affre, the Archbishop of Paris who fell so nobly at the
barricades in June, 1848. His third edition of that year contained the
Greek text of the second edition, without the Latin Vulgate. It is
needless to enlarge upon the history of his travels, sufficiently
described by Tischendorf in the Preface to his seventh edition (1859); it
will be enough to state that he was in Italy in 1843 and 1866; four times
he visited England (1842, 1849, 1855, 1865); and thrice went into the
East, where his chief discovery—that of the Cod. Sinaiticus—was ultimately
made. In 1849 came forth his second Leipzig or fifth edition of the New
Testament, showing a very considerable advance upon that of 1841, though,
in its earlier pages more especially, still very defective, and even as a
manual scarce worthy of his rapidly growing fame. The sixth edition was
one stereotyped for Tauchnitz in 1850 (he put forth another stereotyped
edition in 1862), representing the text of 1849 slightly revised: the
seventh, and up to that date by far the most important, was issued in
thirteen parts at Leipsic during the four years 1856-9. It is indeed a
monument of persevering industry which the world has not often seen
surpassed: yet it was soon to be thrown into the shade by his eighth and
latest edition, issued in eleven parts, between 1864 and 1872, the text of
which is complete, but the Prolegomena, to our great loss, were never
written, by reason of his illness and death (Dec. 7, 1874)(237).
Yet it may truly be asserted that the reputation of Tischendorf as a
Biblical scholar rests less on his critical editions of the N. T., than on
the texts of the chief uncial authorities which in rapid succession he has
given to the world. In 1843 was published the New Testament, in 1845 the
Old Testament portion of “Codex Ephraemi Syri rescriptus (Cod. C)”, 2
vols. 4to, in uncial type, with elaborate Prolegomena, notes, and
facsimiles. In 1846 appeared “Monumenta sacra inedita,” 4to, containing
transcripts of Codd. FaLNWaYΘa of the Gospels, and B of the Apocalypse;
the plan and apparatus of this volume and of nearly all that follow are
the same as in the Codex Ephraemi. In 1846 he also published the Codex
Friderico-Augustanus in lithographed facsimile throughout, containing the
results of his first discovery at Mount Sinai: in 1847 the Evangelium
Palatinum ineditum of the Old Latin: in 1850 and again in 1854 less
splendid but good and useful editions of the Codex Amiatinus of the Latin
Vulgate. His edition of Codex Claromontanus (D of St. Paul), 1852, was of
precisely the same nature as his editions of Cod. Ephraemi, &c, but his
book entitled “Anecdota sacra et profana,” 1855 (second and enlarged
edition in 1861), exhibits a more miscellaneous character, comprising
(together with other matter) transcripts of Oa of the Gospels, M of St.
Paul; a collation of Cod. 61 of the Acts _being the only cursive copy he
seems to have examined_; notices and facsimiles of Codd. ΙΓΛ tisch.(238)
or Evan. 478 of the Gospels, and of the lectionaries tisch.ev (Evst. 190)
and tisch.6. f. (Apost. 71). Next was commenced a new series of “Monumenta
sacra inedita” (projected to consist of nine volumes), on the same plan as
the book of 1846. Much of this series is devoted to codices of the
Septuagint version, to which Tischendorf paid great attention, and whereof
he published four editions (the latest in 1869) hardly worthy of him; but
vol. i (1855) contains transcripts of Codd. I, venev. (Evst. 175); vol. ii
(1857) of Codd. NbRΘa; vol. iii (1860) of Codd. QWc, all of the Gospels;
vol. iv (1869) was given up to the Septuagint, as vol. vii would have been
to the Wolfenbüttel manuscript of Chrysostom, of the sixth century; but
Cod. P of the Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypse comprises a portion of vols.
v (1865) and of vi (1869); while vol. viii was to have been devoted to
palimpsest fragments of both Testaments, such as we have described amongst
the Uncials: the Appendix or vol. ix (1870) contains Cod. E of the Acts,
&c. An improved edition of his system of Gospel Harmony (Synopsis
Evangelica, 1851) appeared in 1864, with some fresh critical matter, a
better one in 1871, and the fifth in 1884. His achievements in regard to
Codd. א and Β we have spoken of in their proper places. He published his
“Notitia Cod. Sinaitici” in 1860, his great edition of that manuscript in
1862, with full notes and Prolegomena; smaller editions of the New
Testament only in 1863 and 1865; “an Appendix Codd. celeberrimorum
Sinaitici, Vaticani, Alexandrini with facsimiles” in 1867. His marvellous
yet unsatisfactory edition of Cod. Vaticanus, prepared under the
disadvantages we have described, appeared in 1867; its “Appendix”
(including Cod. B of the Apocalypse) in 1869; his unhappy “Responsa ad
calumnias Romanas” in 1870. To this long and varied catalogue must yet be
added exact collations of Codd. EGHKMUX Gospels, EGHL Acts, FHL of St.
Paul, and more, all made for his editions of the N. T. A poor issue of the
Authorized English Version of the N. T. was put forth in his name in 1869,
being the thousandth volume of Tauchnitz’s series.
The consideration of the text of Tischendorf’s several editions will be
touched upon in Chapter X. To the _general_ accuracy of his collations
every one who has followed him over a portion of his vast field can bear
and is bound to bear cheerful testimony. For practical purposes his
correctness is quite sufficient, even though one or two who have
accomplished very much less may have excelled in this respect some at
least of his later works. For the unflinching exertions and persevering
toil of full thirty years Tischendorf was called upon in 1873 to pay the
natural penalty in a stroke of paralysis, which prostrated his strong
frame, and put a sudden end to his most fruitful studies. He was born at
Lengenfeld in the kingdom of Saxony in 1815 and died in 1874, having
nearly completed his sixtieth year(239).
16. “The Greek New Testament, edited from ancient authorities; with the
various readings of all the ancient MSS., the ancient versions, and other
ecclesiastical writers (to Eusebius inclusive); together with the Latin
version of Jerome, from the Codex Amiatinus of the sixth century. By
Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, LL.D.” 4to, 1857-1872, pp. 1017. [Appendix by
Dr. Hort, 1879, pp. i-xxxii; 1018-1069.]
The esteemed editor of the work of which the above is the full title,
first became generally known as the author of “The Book of Revelation in
Greek, edited from ancient authorities; with a new English Version,” 1844:
and, in spite of some obvious blemishes and defects, his attempt was
received in the English Church with the gratitude and respect to which his
thorough earnestness and independent views justly entitled him. He had
arranged in his own mind as early as 1838 the plan of a Greek Testament,
which he announced on the publication of the Apocalypse, and now set
himself vigorously to accomplish. His fruitless endeavour to collate Cod.
B has already been mentioned, but when he was on the continent in 1845-6,
and again in 1849-50, also in 1862, he thoroughly examined all the
manuscripts he could meet with, that fell within the compass of his
design. In 1854 he published a volume full of valuable information, and
intended as a formal exposition of his critical principles, intitled “An
Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament.” In 1856 he
re-wrote, rather than re-edited, that portion of the Rev. T. Hartwell
Horne’s well-known “Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of
the Holy Scriptures” which relates to the New Testament, under the title
of “An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament,”
&c.(240) In 1857 appeared, for the use of subscribers only, the Gospels of
SS. Matthew and Mark, as the first part of his “Greek New Testament” (pp.
1-216); early in 1861 the second part, containing SS. Luke and John (pp.
217-488), with but a few pages of “Introductory Notice” in each. In that
year, paralysis, _mercurialium pestis virorum_, for a while suspended our
editor’s too assiduous labours: but he recovered health sufficient to
publish the Acts and Catholic Epistles in 1865, the Epistles of St. Paul
down to 2 Thess. in 1869. Early in 1870, while in the act of revising the
concluding chapters of the Apocalypse, he was visited by a second and very
severe stroke of his fell disease. The remaining portion of the Pauline
Epistles was sent out in 1870 as he had himself prepared it; the
Revelation (alas! without the long-desired Prolegomena) in 1872, as well
as the state of Tregelles’ papers would enable his friends S. J. B.
Bloxsidge and B. W. Newton to perform their office. The revered author
could contribute nothing save a message to his subscribers, full of devout
thankfulness and calm reliance on the Divine wisdom. The text of the
Apocalypse differs from that which he arranged in 1844 in about 229
places.
Except Codd. ΟΞ, which were published in 1861 (_see_ under those MSS.),
this critic has not edited in full the text of any document, but his
renewed collations of manuscripts are very extensive: viz. Codd.
EGHKMNbRUXZΓΛ 1, 33, 69 of the Gospels; HL 13, 31, 61 of the Acts; DFL 1,
17, 37 of St. Paul, 1, 14 of the Apocalypse, _Am._ of the Vulgate. Having
followed Tregelles through the whole of Cod. 69 (Act. 31, Paul. 37, Apoc.
14), I am able to speak positively of his scrupulous exactness, and in
regard to other manuscripts now in England it will be found that, where
Tischendorf and Tregelles differ, the latter is seldom in the wrong. To
the versions and Fathers (especially to Origen and Eusebius) he has
devoted great attention. His volume is a beautiful specimen of
typography(241), and its arrangement is very convenient, particularly his
happy expedient for showing at every open leaf the precise authorities
that are extant at that place.
The peculiarity of Tregelles’ system is intimated, rather than stated, in
the title-page of his Greek N. T. It consists in resorting to “ancient
authorities” alone in the construction of his revised text, and in
refusing not only to the received text, but to the great mass of
manuscripts also, all voice in determining the true readings. This scheme,
although from the history he gives of his work (An Account of Printed
Text, pp. 153, &c.), it was apparently devised independently of Lachmann,
is in fact essentially that great scholar’s plan, after those parts of it
are withdrawn which are manifestly indefensible. Tregelles’ “ancient
authorities” are thus reduced to those manuscripts which, not being
Lectionaries, happen to be written in uncial characters, with the
remarkable exceptions of Codd. 1, 33, 69 of the Gospels, 61 of the Acts,
which he admits because they “preserve an ancient text.” We shall
hereafter enquire (Chap. X) whether the text of the N. T. can safely be
grounded on a basis so narrow as that of Tregelles.
This truly eminent person, born at Falmouth of a Quaker family January 30,
1813, received what education he ever got at Falmouth Classical School (of
which I was Master twenty years later), from 1825 to 1828. At an early age
he left the communion in which he was bred, to join a body called the
Plymouth Brethren, among whom he met with much disquietude and some mild
persecution: his last years were more happily spent as a humble lay member
of the Church of England, a fact he very earnestly begged me to keep in
mind(242). The critical studies he took up as early as 1838, when he was
only twenty-five years old, were the main occupation of his life. The
inconvenient and costly form in which he published his Greek Testament,
brought upon him pecuniary loss, and even trenched upon the moderate
fortune of his true and loving wife. After several years of deep
retirement he died at Plymouth, April 24, 1875: and whereas his widow, who
has since followed him to the other world, was anxious that his great work
should be as far as possible completed, Dr. Hort has manifested his
veneration for an honoured memory by publishing in 1879 an “Appendix” to
the Greek New Testament, embracing what materials for Prolegomena
Tregelles’ published writings supplied, and supplementary corrections to
every page of the main work, compiled by the Rev. A. W. Streane, Fellow of
C. C. C, Cambridge, which comprise a wonderful monument of minute
diligence and devotion.
Of Tischendorf and Tregelles, that duumvirate of Biblical critics, I may
be allowed to repeat a few words, extracted from the Preface to the Greek
Testament of 1876, in the series of “Cambridge Texts:” “Eheu quos viros!
natu ferè aequales, indole et famâ satis dispares, ambo semper in adversum
nitentes, ambo piis laboribus infractos, intra paucos menses mors abripuit
immatura.”
17. “The New Testament in the original Greek. The text revised by Brooke
Foss Westcott, D.D. [Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of
Cambridge], and Fenton John Anthony Hort, D.D. [Hulsean Professor of
Divinity there]. Vol. I. Cambridge and London, 1881.” “Introduction and
Appendix,” in a separate volume, by Dr. Hort only, 1881. This important
and comprehensive work, the joint labour of two of the best scholars of
this age, toiling, now separately, now in counsel, for five and twenty
years, was published, the text a few days earlier than the Revised English
Version (May 17, 1881), the Introduction about four months later. The
text, or one almost identical with it, had been submitted to the Revisers
of the N. T., and to a few other Biblical students, several years before,
so that the general tenor and spirit of our authors’ judgement was known
to many: the second edition of my present work was enriched by the free
permission granted by them to announce their conclusions regarding
passages which come up for discussion in Chapter XII, and elsewhere. Drs.
Westcott and Hort depart more widely from the _textus receptus_ than any
previous editor had thought necessary; nor can they be blamed for carrying
out their deliberate convictions, if the reasons they allege shall prove
sufficient to justify them. Those reasons are given at length by Dr. Hort
in his “Introduction,” a treatise whose merits may be frankly acknowledged
by persons the least disposed to accept his arguments: never was a cause,
good or bad in itself, set off with higher ability and persuasive power.
On the validity of his theory we shall have much to say in Chapters X and
XII, to which we here refer once for all. The elegant volume which
exhibits the Greek text contains in its margin many alternative readings,
chiefly recorded in passages wherein a difference of opinion existed
between the two illustrious editors. Words or passages supposed to be of
doubtful authority are included in brackets ([ ]), those judged to be
probably or certainly spurious—and their number is ominously large—in
double brackets ([[ ]]). Mark xvi. 9-20; John vii. 53-viii. 11 are
banished to the end of their respective Gospels, as if they did not belong
to them. Finally, quotations from and even slight allusions to the Old
Testament, in great but judicious plenty, are printed in a kind of uncial
letter, to the great benefit of the student.
This notice cannot be left without an expression of deep regret upon the
loss of Dr. Hort at a comparatively early age. Much as the author of this
work and the editor of this edition has differed from the views of that
distinguished man, the services which he has rendered in many ways to the
cause of sacred textual criticism cannot here be forgotten or
unrecognized. His assiduity and thoroughness are a pattern to all who come
after him.
18. The text constructed by the English Revisers in preparation for their
Revised Translation was published in two forms at Oxford and Cambridge
respectively in 1881. The Oxford edition, under the care of Archdeacon
Palmer, incorporated in the text the readings adopted by the Revisers with
the variations at the foot of the Authorized edition of 1611, of
Stephanus’ third edition published in 1550, and of the margin of the
Revised Version. The Cambridge edition, under the care of Dr. Scrivener,
gave the Authorized text with the variations of the Revisers mentioned at
the foot. Both editions are admirably edited. The number of variations
adopted by the Revisers, which are generally based upon the principles
advocated by Westcott and Hort, has been estimated by Dr. Scrivener at
5,337 (Burgon’s “Revision Revised,” p. 405). The titles in full of these
two editions are:—
1. The New Testament in the Original Greek, according to the Text followed
in the Authorized Version, together with the Variations adopted in the
Revised Version. Edited for the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press,
by F. H. A. Scrivener, M.A., D.C.L., L.L.D., Prebendary of Exeter and
Vicar of Hendon. Cambridge, 1881.
2. Η ΚΑΙΝΗ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗ. The Greek Testament, with the Readings adopted by the
Revisers of the Authorized Version. Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1881.
[Preface by the Editor, Archdeacon Palmer, D.D.]