It would be quite foreign to our present design, to attempt to notice all the editions of the New Testament in Greek which have appeared in the course of the last three centuries and a half, nor would a large volume suffice for such a labour. We will limit our attention, therefore, to those early editions which have contributed to form our commonly received text, and to such others of more recent date as not only exhibit a revised text, but contain an accession of fresh critical materials for its more complete emendation148.
Since the Latin or “Mazarin” Bible, printed between 1452 and 1456, was the first production of the new-born printing-press (see above, p. 61), and the Jews had published the Hebrew Bible in 1488, we must impute it to the general ignorance of Greek among divines in Western Europe, that although the two songs, Magnificat and Benedictus (Luke i), were annexed to a Greek Psalter which appeared first at Milan in 1481, without a printer's [pg 176] name; next at Venice in 1486, being edited by a Greek; again at Venice from the press of Aldus in 1496 or 1497: and although the first six chapters of St. John's Gospel were published at Venice by Aldus Manutius in 1504, and John vi. 1-14 at Tübingen in 1514, yet the first printed edition of the whole in N. T. the original is that contained in—
1. The Complutensian Polyglott149 (6 vols., folio), the munificent design of Francis Ximenes de Cisneros [1437-1517], Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, and Regent of Castile (1506-1517). This truly eminent person, six years of whose humble youth were spent in a dungeon through the caprice of one of his predecessors in the Primacy of Spain, experienced what we have seen so conspicuously illustrated in other instances, that long imprisonment ripens the intellect which it fails to extinguish. Entering the Franciscan order in 1482, he carried the ascetic habit of his profession to the throne of Toledo and the palace of his sovereign. Becoming in 1492 Confessor to Queen Isabella the Catholic, and Primate three years later, he devoted to pure charity or to public purposes the enormous revenues of his see; founding the University at Alcalá de Henares in New Castile, where he had gone to school, and defraying the cost of an expedition which as Regent he led to Oran against the Moors. In 1502 he conceived the plan of the first Polyglott Bible, to celebrate the birth of him who afterwards became the Emperor Charles V, and gathered in his University of Alcalá (Complutum) as many manuscripts as he could procure, with men he deemed equal to the task, of whom James Lopez de Stunica (subsequently known for his controversy with Erasmus) was the principal: others being Æ. Antonio of Lebrixa, Demetrius Ducas of Crete, and Ferdinand of Valladolid (Pintianus). The whole outlay of Cardinal Ximenes on the Polyglott is stated to have exceeded 50,000 ducats or about £23,000, a vast sum in those days:—but his yearly income as Primate was four times as great. The first volume printed, Tom. v, contains the New Testament in two parallel columns, Greek and Latin, the latter being that modification of the Vulgate then current: the colophon on the last page of the Apocalypse states [pg 177] that it was completed January 10, 1514, the printer being Arnald William de Brocario. Tom. vi, comprising a Lexicon, indices, &c., bears date March 17, 1515; Tom. i-iv of the Old Testament and Apocrypha, 1517 (Tom. iv dated July 10), on November 8 of which year the Cardinal died, full of honours and good deeds. This event must have retarded the publication of the whole, since Pope Leo's licence was not granted until March 22, 1520, and Erasmus did not see the book before 1522. As not more than six hundred copies were printed, this Polyglott must from the first have been scarce and dear, and is not always met with in Public Libraries.
The Apocryphal books, like the N. T., are of course given only in two languages; in the Old Testament the Latin Vulgate holds the chief place in the middle, between the Hebrew and the Septuagint Greek150. The Greek type in the other volumes is of the common character, with the usual breathings and accents; in the fifth, or New Testament volume, it is quite different, being modelled after the fashion of manuscripts of about the thirteenth century, very bold and elegant (see Plate x, No. 26), without breathings, and accentuated according to a system defended and explained in a bilingual preface πρὸς τοὺς ἐντευξομένους, but never heard of before or since: monosyllables have no accent, while in other words the tone syllable receives the acute, the grave and circumflex being discarded. The Latin is in a noble church-character, references are made from the one text to the other by means of small letters, and where in either column there is a void space, in consequence of words omitted or otherwise, it is filled up by such curves as are seen in the bottom line of our specimen. The foreign matter in this volume consists of the short Preface in Latin and Greek, Eusebius Carpiano (but without the canons), Jerome's letter to Damasus, with the ordinary Latin Prologues [pg 178] and Arguments before each book. St. Paul's Epistles precede the Acts, as in Codd. א, 61, 69, 90, &c. and before them stand the ἀποδημία παύλου, Euthalii περὶ χρόνων, the ordinary ὑποθέσεις to all the twenty-one Epistles (grouped together), with Theodoret's prologues subjoined to thirteen of the ὑποθέσεις. By the side of the Latin text are numerous parallel passages, and there are also five marginal notes (on Matt. vi. 13; 1 Cor. xiii. 3; xv. 31; 51; 1 John v. 7, 8). The only divisions are the common Latin chapters, subdivided by the letters A, B, C, D, &c. Copies of laudatory verses151, an interpretation of Proper Names, and a Greek Lexicon of the N. T., close the volume.
It has long been debated among critics, what manuscripts were used by the Complutensian editors, especially in the N. T. Ximenes is reported to have spent 4,000 ducats in the purchase of such manuscripts; in the Preface to the N. T. we are assured that “non quevis exemplaria impressioni huic archetypa fuisse: sed antiquissima emendatissimaque: ac tante preterea vetustatis, ut fidem eis abrogare nefas videatur: Que sanctissimus in Christo pater et dominus noster Leo decimus pontifex maximus, huic instituto favere cupiens ex apostolica bibliotheca educta misit....” Yet these last expressions can hardly refer to the N. T., inasmuch as Leo X was not elected Pope till March 11, 1513, and the N. T. was completed Jan. 10 of the very next year152. Add to this that Vercellone, whose services to sacred literature have been spoken of above, brought to light the fact that only two manuscripts are recorded as having been sent to the Cardinal from the Vatican in the first year of Leo, and neither of them (Vat. 330, 346) contained any part of [pg 179] the N. T.153 The only one of the Complutensian codices specified by Stunica, the Cod. Rhodiensis (Act. 52), has entirely disappeared, and from a Catalogue of the thirty volumes of Biblical manuscripts once in the library at Alcalà, but now at Madrid, communicated in 1846 by Don José Gutierrez, the Librarian, we find that they consist exclusively of Latin and Hebrew books, with the exception of two which contain portions of the Septuagint in Greek154. Thus we seem cut off from all hope of obtaining direct information as to the age, character, and present locality of the materials employed for the Greek text of this edition.
It is obvious, however, that in the course of twelve years (1502-14), Ximenes may have obtained transcripts of codices he did not himself possess, and since some of the more remarkable readings of the Complutensian are found in but one or two manuscripts (e.g. Luke i. 64 in Codd. 140, 251; ii. 22 in Cod. 76), such copies should of course be narrowly watched. We have pointed out above the resemblance that Siedel's codex (Act. 42, Paul. 48, Apoc. 13) bears to this edition: so too Cod. 4 of the Gospels. Mill first noticed its affinity to Laud. 2 or Evan. 51, Act. 32, Paul. 38 (Evan. 51), and though this is somewhat remote in the Gospels, throughout the Acts and Epistles it is close and indubitable155. We see, therefore, [pg 180] no cause for believing that either Cod. B, or any manuscript much resembling it in character, or any other document of high antiquity or first-rate importance, was employed by the editors of this Polyglott. The text it exhibits does not widely differ from that of most codices written from the tenth century downwards.
That it was corrupted from the parallel Latin version was contended by Wetstein and others on very insufficient grounds. Even the Latinism βεελζεβούβ Matt. x. 25, seems a mere inadvertence, and is corrected immediately afterwards (xii. 24, 27), as well as in the four other places wherein the word is used. We need not deny that 1 John v. 7, 8 was interpolated, and probably translated from the Vulgate; and a few other cases have a suspicious look (Rom. xvi. 5; 2 Cor. v. 10; vi. 15; and especially Gal. iii. 19); the articles too are employed as if they were unfamiliar to the editor (e.g. Acts xxi. 4; 8): yet we must emphatically deny that on the whole the Latin Vulgate had an appreciable effect upon the Greek. This last point had been demonstrated to the satisfaction of Michaelis and of Marsh by Goeze156, in whose short tract many readings of Cod. Laud. 2 are also examined. In the more exact collation of the N. T., which we have made with the common text (Elzevir 1624), and which appeared in the first edition of the present work, out of 2,780 places in all, wherein the Complutensian edition differs from that of Elzevir (viz. 1,046 in the Gospels, 578 in the Pauline Epistles, 542 in the Acts and Catholic Epistles, 614 in the Apocalypse), in no less than 849 the Latin is at variance with the Greek; in the majority of the rest the difference cannot be expressed in another language. Since the Complutensian N. T. could only have been published from manuscripts, it deserves more minute examination than it has received from Mill or Wetstein; and it were much to [pg 181] be desired that minute collations could be made of several other early editions, especially the whole five of Erasmus.
Since this Polyglott has been said to be very inaccurately printed, it is necessary to state that we have noted just fifty pure errors of the press; in one place, moreover (Heb. vii. 3), part of the ninth Euthalian κεφάλαιον (εν ω ότι και του αβραάμ προετιμήθη) has crept into the text. All the usual peculiarities observable in later manuscripts are here, e.g. 224 itacisms (chiefly ω for ο, η for ει, ει for ι, υ for η, οι for ει, and vice versâ); thirty-two instances of ν ἐφελκυστικόν, or the superabundant ν, before a consonant; fifteen cases of the hiatus for the lack of ν before a vowel; ουτως is sometimes found before a consonant, but ουτω sixty-eight times; ουκ and ουχ are interchanged twelve times. The following peculiarities, found in many manuscripts, and here retained, may show that the grammatical forms of the Greek were not yet settled among scholars; παρήνγελεν Mark vi. 8; διάγγελε Luke ix. 60; καταγγέλειν Acts iv. 2; διαγγέλων Acts xxi. 26; καταγγέλων 1 Cor. ii. 1; παραγγέλω 1 Cor. vii. 10; αναγγέλλων 2 Cor. vii. 7; παραγγέλομεν 2 Thess. iii. 4; παράγγελε 1 Tim. iv. 11; v. 7; vi. 17. The augment is omitted nine times (Matt. xi. 17; Acts vii. 42; xxvi. 32; Rom. i. 2; Gal. ii. 13; 1 Tim. vi. 10; 2 Tim. i. 16; Apoc. iv. 8; xii. 17); the reduplication twice (John xi. 52; 1 Cor. xi. 5); μέλλω and μέλει are confounded, Mark iv. 38; Acts xviii. 17; Apoc. iii. 2; xii. 4. Other anomalous forms (some of them would be called Alexandrian) are παμπόλου Mark viii. 1; νηρέαν Rom. xvi. 15; εξαιρείτε 1 Cor. v. 13; αποκτένει 2 Cor. iii. 6, passim; στιχούμεν Gal. v. 25; είπα Heb. iii. 10; ευράμενος ibid. ix. 12; απεσχέσθαι 1 Pet. ii. 11; καταλειπόντες 2 Pet. ii. 15; περιβαλλείται Apoc. iii. 5; δειγνύντος ibid. xxii. 8. The stops are placed carelessly in the Greek, being (.), (,), rarely (·), never (;). In the Latin the stops are pretty regular, but the abbreviations very numerous, even such purely arbitrary forms as xps for Christus. In the Greek σ often stands at the end of a word for ς, ï and often ü or υ are set at the beginning of syllables: there are no instances of ι ascript or subscript, and no capital letters except at the beginning of a chapter, when they are often flourished. The following forms are also derived from the general practice of manuscripts, and occur perpetually: απάρτι, απάρχης, δαν (for δ᾽ ἂν), ειμή, εξαυτής, επιτοαυτό, εφόσον, εωσότου, καίτοιγε, καθημέραν, κατιδίαν, κατόναρ, μεθήμων, μέντοι, ουμή, τουτέστι; and for the most part διαπαντός, διατί, διατούτο, είτις, ουκέτι. Sometimes the preposition and its case make but a single word, as παραφύσιν, and once we find ευποιήσαι, Vulg. benefacere (Mark xiv. 7).
The Complutensian text has been followed in the main by only a few later editions, chiefly by Chr. Plantin's Antwerp Polyglott (1569-72)157.
[pg 182]2. Erasmus' New Testament was by six years the earlier published, though it was printed two years later than the Complutensian. Its editor, both in character and fortunes, presents a striking contrast with Ximenes; yet what he lacked of the Castilian's firmness he more than atoned for by his true love of learning, and the cheerfulness of spirit that struggled patiently, if not boldly, with adversity. Desiderius Erasmus (ἐράσμιος, i.e. Gerald) was born at Rotterdam in 1465, or, perhaps, a year or two later, the illegitimate son of reputable and (but for that sin) of virtuous parents. Soon left an orphan, he was forced to take reluctantly the minor orders, and entered the priesthood in 1492. Thenceforward his was the hard life of a solitary and wandering man of letters, earning a precarious subsistence from booksellers or pupils158, now learning Greek at Oxford (but αὐτοδίδακτος)159, now teaching it at Cambridge (1510); losing by his reckless wit the friends his vast erudition had won; restless and unfrugal, perhaps, yet always labouring faithfully and with diligence. He was in England when John Froben, a celebrated publisher at Basle, moved by the report of the forthcoming Spanish Bible and eager to forestall it, made application to Erasmus, through a common friend, to undertake immediately an edition of the N. T.: “se daturum pollicetur, quantum alius quisquam,” is the argument employed. This proposal was sent on April 17, 1515, years before which time Erasmus had prepared numerous annotations to illustrate a revised Latin version he had long projected. On September 11 it was yet unsettled whether this, improved version should stand by the Greek in a parallel column (the plan actually adopted), or be printed separately: [pg 183] yet the colophon at the end of Erasmus' first edition, a large folio of 1,027 pages in all, is dated February, 1516; the end of the Annotations, March 1, 1516; Erasmus' dedication to Leo X, Feb. 1, 1516; and Froben's Preface, full of joyful hope and honest pride in the friendship of the first of living authors, Feb. 24, 1516. Well might Erasmus, who had besides other literary engagements to occupy his time, declare subsequently that the volume “praecipitatum fuit verius quam editum;” yet both on the title-page, and in his dedication to the Pope, he allows himself to employ widely different language160. When we read the assurance he addressed to Leo, “Novum ut vocant testamentum universum ad Graecae originis fidem recognovimus, idque non temere neque levi opera, sed adhibitis in consilium compluribus utriusque linguae codicibus, nec iis sane quibuslibet, sed vetustissimis simul et emendatissimis,” it is almost painful to be obliged to remember that a portion of ten months at the utmost could have been devoted to his task by Erasmus; while the only manuscripts he can be imagined to have constantly used are Codd. Evan. 2, Act. Paul. 2 and Paul. 7, with occasional reference to Evan. Act. Paul. 1 and Act. Paul. 4 (all still at Basle) for the remainder of the New Testament, to which add Apoc. 1, now happily recovered, alone for the Apocalypse. All these, excepting Evan. Act. Paul. 1, were neither ancient nor particularly valuable, and of Cod. 1 he professed to make but small account161. As Apoc. 1 was mutilated in the last six [pg 184] verses, Erasmus turned these into Greek from the Latin; and some portions of his self-made version, which are found (however some editors may speak vaguely) in no one known Greek manuscript whatever, still cleave to our received text162. Besides this scanty roll, however, he not rarely refers in his Annotations to other manuscripts he had seen in the course of his travels (e.g. on Heb. i. 3; Apoc. i. 4; viii. 13), yet too indistinctly for his allusions to be of much use to critics. Some such readings, as alleged by him, have not been found elsewhere (e.g. Acts xxiv. 23; Rom. xii. 20), and may have been cited loosely from distant recollection (comp. Col. iii. 3; Heb. iv. 12; 2 Pet. iii. 1; Apoc. ii. 18).
When Ximenes, in the last year of his life, was shown Erasmus' edition which had thus got the start of his own, and his editor, Stunica, sought to depreciate it, the noble old man replied, “would God that all the Lord's people were prophets! produce better, if thou canst; condemn not the industry of another163.” His generous confidence in his own work was not misplaced. He had many advantages over the poor scholar and the enterprising printer of Basle, and had not let them pass unimproved. The [pg 185] typographical errors of the Complutensian Greek have been stated; Erasmus' first edition is in that respect the most faulty book I know. Oecolampadius, or John Hausschein of Basle [1482-1531], afterwards of some note as a disputer with Luther on the Sacramentarian controversy, had undertaken this department for him; and was glad enough to serve under such a chief; but Froben's hot haste gave him little leisure to do his part. No less than 501 itacisms are imported from the manuscripts into his printed text, and the ν ἐφελκυστικόν is perpetually used with verbs, before a consonant beginning the next word. We must, however, impute it to design that ι subscript, which is elsewhere placed pretty correctly, is here set under η in the plural of the subjunctive mood active, but not in the singular (e.g. James ii. ἐπιβλέψῃτε, εἴπῃτε bis, but ver. 2 εἰσέλθη bis). With regard to the text, the difference between the two editions is very wide in the Apocalypse, the text of the Complutensian being decidedly preferable; elsewhere they resemble each other more closely, and while we fully admit the error of Stunica and his colleagues in translating from the Latin version into Greek, 1 John v. 7, 8, it would appear that Erasmus has elsewhere acted in the same manner, not merely in cases which for the moment admitted no choice, but in places where no such necessity existed: thus in Acts ix. 5, 6, the words from σκληρόν to πρὸς αὐτόν are interpolated from the Vulgate, partly by the help of Acts xxvi164.
Erasmus died at Basle in 1536, having lived to publish four editions besides that of 1516. The second has enlarged annotations, and very truly bears on its title the statement “multo quam antehac diligentius ab Er. Rot. recognitum;” for a large portion of the misprints, and not a few readings of the first edition, are herein corrected, the latter chiefly on the authority of a fresh codex, Evan. Act. Paul. 3; The colophon to the Apocalypse is dated 1518, Froben's Epistle to the reader, Feb. 5, 1519. In this edition ι subscript is for the most part set right; Carp., Eus. t., κεφ. t., τίτλοι, Am., Eus. are added [pg 186] in the Gospels; Dorotheus' “Lives of the Four Evangelists” (see Act. 89) stood before St. Matthew in 1516; but now the longer “Lives” by Sophronius, with Theophylact's “Prologues,” are set before each Gospel. Κεφάλαια (not the Euthalian) are given in both editions in Rom. 1, 2 Corinth. only, but the Latin chapters are represented in the margin throughout, with the subdivisions A, B, C, D. Of these two editions put together 3,300 copies were printed. The third edition (1522) is chiefly remarkable for its insertion of 1 John v. 7, 8 in the Greek text165, under the circumstances described above, Vol. I. p. 200, in consequence of Erasmus' controversy with Stunica and H. Standish, Bp. of St. Asaph (d. 1534), and with a much weaker antagonist, Edward Lee, afterwards Archbishop of York, who objected to his omission of a passage which no Greek codex was then known to contain. This edition again was said to be “tertio jam ac diligentius ... recognitum,” and contains also “Capita argumentorum contra morosos quosdam ac indoctos,” which he subsequently found reason to enlarge. The fourth edition (dated March, 1527) contains the text in three parallel columns, the Greek, the Latin Vulgate, and Erasmus' recension of it. He had seen the Complutensian Polyglott in 1522, shortly after the publication of his third edition, and had now the good sense to avail himself of its aid in the improvement of the text, especially in the Apocalypse, wherein he amended from it at least ninety readings. His last edition of 1535 once more discarded the Latin Vulgate, and differs very little from the fourth as regards the text166.
A minute collation of all Erasmus' editions is a desideratum we may one day come to see supplied. The present writer hopes [pg 187] soon to publish a full comparison of his first and second editions with the Complutensian text167, as also with that of Stephen 1550, of Beza 1565, and of Elzevir 1624. All who have followed Mill over any portion of the vast field he endeavoured to occupy, will feel certain that his statements respecting their divergences are much below the truth: such as they are, we repeat them for want of more accurate information. He estimates that Erasmus' second edition contains 330 changes from the first for the better, seventy for the worse (N. T., Proleg. § 1134); that the third differs from the second in 118 places (ibid. § 1138)168; the fourth from the third in 106 or 113 places, ninety being those from the Apocalypse just spoken of (ibid. § 1141)169. The fifth he alleges to differ from the fourth only four times, so far as he noticed (ibid. § 1150): but we meet with as many variations in St. James' Epistle alone170.
3. In 1518 appeared the Graeca Biblia at Venice, from the celebrated press of Aldus: the work professes to be grounded on a collation of many most ancient copies171. However true this must be with regard to the Old Testament, which was now published in Greek for the first time, Aldus follows the first edition of Erasmus so closely in the New as to reproduce his very errors of the press (Mill, N. T., Proleg. § 1122), even those which Oecolampadius had corrected in the list of errata; though Aldus is stated to differ from Erasmus in about 200 places, for the better or worse172. If this edition was really [pg 188] revised by means of manuscripts (Cod. 131) rather than by mere conjecture, we know not what they were, or how far intelligently employed.
Another edition out of the many which now began to swarm, wherein the testimony of manuscripts is believed to have been followed, is that of Simon Colinaeus, Paris, 1534, in which the text is an eclectic mixture of the Complutensian and Erasmian173. Mill states (Proleg. § 1144) that in about 150 places Colinaeus deserts them both, and that his variations are usually supported by the evidence of known codices (Evan. 119, 120 at Paris, and Steph. ια᾽, i.e. Act. 8, Paul. 10, have been suggested), though a few still remain which may perhaps be deemed conjectural. Wetstein (N. T., Proleg. vol. i. p. 142) thinks that for Bogard's Paris edition of 1543 with various readings Evan. 120 or Steph. ιδ᾽ might have been used, but his own references hardly favour that notion.
4. The editions of Robert Stephen (Estienne), mainly by reason of their exquisite beauty, have exercised a far wider influence than these, and Stephen's third or folio edition of 1550 is by many regarded as the received or standard text. This eminent and resolute man [1503-59], “whose Biblical work taken altogether had perhaps more influence than that of any other single man in the sixteenth century174,” early commenced his useful career as a printer at Paris, and, having incurred the enmity of the Doctors of the Sorbonne for his editions of the Latin Vulgate, was yet protected and patronised by Francis I [d. 1547] and his son Henry II. It was from the Royal Press that his three principal editions of the Greek N. T. were issued, the [pg 189] fourth and last being published in 1551 at Geneva, to which town he finally withdrew the next year, and made public profession of the Protestant opinions which had long been gathering strength in his mind. The editions of 1546, 1549 are small 12mo in size, most elegantly printed with type cast at the expense of Francis: the opening words of the Preface common to both, “O mirificam Regis nostri optimi et praestantissimi principis liberalitatem...” have given them the name by which they are known among connoisseurs. Erasmus and his services to sacred learning Stephen does not so much as name, nor indeed did he as yet adopt him for a model: he speaks of “codices ipsa vetustatis specie pene adorandos” which he had met with in the King's Library, by which, he boldly adds, “ita hunc nostrum recensuimus, ut nullam omnino literam secus esse pateremur quam plures, iique meliores libri, tanquam testes, comprobarent.” The Complutensian, as he admits, assisted him greatly, and he notes its close connexion with the readings of his manuscripts175. Mill assures us (Proleg. § 1220) that Stephen's first and second editions differ but in sixty-seven places. My own collation of the two books gives 139 cases of divergence in the text, twenty-eight in punctuation. They differ jointly from the third edition 334 times in the text, twenty-seven in punctuation. In the Apocalypse the first and second editions are close to the text of Erasmus, differing from each other but in eleven places, while the third edition follows the Complutensian or other authorities against the first in sixty-one places. In the folio or third edition of 1550 the various readings of the codices, obscurely referred to in the Preface to that of 1546, are entered in the margin. This fine volume (bearing on its title-page, in honour of Henry II, the inscription Βασιλεῖ τ᾽ ἀγαθῷ, κρατερῷ τ᾽ αἰχμητῇ) derives much importance from its being the earliest ever published with critical apparatus. In the Preface or Epistle to the Reader, written after the example of the Complutensian editors both in Greek and Latin, his authorities are declared to be sixteen; viz. α', the Spanish Polyglott; β', which we have already discussed (above, [pg 190] p. 124, note 3), γ᾽, δ᾽, ε᾽ ϛ᾽, ζ᾽, η᾽, ι᾽, ιε᾽ taken from King Henry II's Library; the rest (i.e. θ᾽, ια᾽, ιβ᾽, ιγ᾽, ιδ᾽, ιϛ᾽) are those ἂ αὐτοὶ πανταχόθεν συνηθροίσαμεν, or, as the Latin runs, “quae undique corrogare licuit:” these, of course, were not necessarily his own, one at least (ιγ᾽, Act. 9, Paul. 11) we are sure was not. Although Robert Stephen professed to have collated the whole sixteen for his two previous editions, and that too ὡς οἷόν τε ἦν ἐπιμελέστατα, this part of his work is now known to be due to his son Henry [1528-98], who in 1546 was only eighteen years old (Wetstein, N. T., Proleg., vol. i. pp. 143-4). The degree of accuracy attained in this collation may be estimated from the single instance of the Complutensian, a book printed in very clear type, widely circulated, and highly valued by Stephen himself. Deducting mere errata, itacisms, and such like, it differs from his third edition in more than 2,300 places, of which (including cases where π. or πάντες stands for all his copies) it is cited correctly 554 times (viz. 164 in the Gospels, ninety-four in St. Paul, seventy-six in the Acts and Catholic Epistles, 220 in the Apocalypse), and falsely no less than fifty-six times, again including errors from a too general use of πάντες176. I would not say with some that these authorities stand in the margin more for parade than use, yet the text is perpetually at variance with the majority of them, and in 119 places with them all177. If we trust ourselves once more to the guidance of Mill (Proleg. § 1228), the folio of 1550 departs from its smaller predecessors of 1546, 1549, in 284 readings178, chiefly to adopt the text of Erasmus' fifth [pg 191] edition, though even now the Complutensian is occasionally preferred (e.g. εὐλογήσας Matt. xxvi. 26), most often in the Apocalypse, and that with very good reason. Of his other fifteen authorities, ια᾽ (= Act. 8) and ιϛ᾽ (= Apoc. 3) have never been identified, but were among the six in private hands: β᾽ certainly is Cod. D or Bezae; the learned have tried, and on the whole successfully, to recognize the remainder, especially those in the Royal (or Imperial, or National) Library at Paris. In that great collection Le Long has satisfied us that γ᾽ is probably Evan. 4; δ᾽ is certainly Evan. 5; ε᾽ Evan. 6; ϛ᾽ Evan. 7; η᾽ Evan. L; ζ᾽ he rightly believed to be Evan. 8 (above, p. 191, note); ι᾽ appears to be Act. 7. Of those in the possession of individuals in Stephen's time, Bp. Marsh (who in his “Letters to Mr. Archdeacon Travis,” 1795, was led to examine this subject very carefully) has proved that ιγ᾽ is Act. 9; Wetstein thought θ᾽ was Evan. 38 (which however see); Scholz seems to approve of Wetstein's conjecture which Griesbach doubted (N. T., Proleg., Sect. 1. p. xxxviii), that ιβ᾽ is Evan. 9: Griesbach rightly considers ιδ᾽ to be Evan. 120; ιε᾽ was seen by Le Long to be Act. 10: these last four are now in the Royal Library. It has proved the more difficult to settle them, as Robert Stephen did not even print all the materials that Henry had gathered; many of whose various readings were published subsequently by Beza179 from the collator's own manuscript, which itself must have been very defective. With all its faults, however, the edition of 1550 was a foundation on which others might hereafter build, and was unquestionably of great use in directing the attention of students to the authorities on which alone the true text of Scripture is based. This standard edition contains the following supplementary matter besides the Epistle to the reader: Chrysostom's Hom. I in S. Matthaeum (then first [pg 192] published): Carp., Eus. t.: Πίναξ μαρτυριῶν of O. T. passages cited in the N. T. being (1) literal, (2) virtual: seventy-two Hexameter lines, headed Ερρικος ο Ρωβερτου Στεφανου, φιλοθεω παντι: prol. by Theophylact following “Lives” by Sophronius and Dorotheus of Tyre, with κεφ. t. before each Gospel: τίτλ., κεφ., Am., Eus. Before the Acts stand Ἀποδημία Παύλου and Euthalius περὶ τῶν χρόνων, κεφ. t. Before the Epistles is a new title-page. Chrysostom's prol. on the Pauline Epistles begins the new volume. Each separate Epistle has prefixed prol. (chiefly by Theodoret) and κεφ. t. The Acts and Epistles have κεφ., but the Apocalypse no prol. or κεφ., except the ordinary Latin chapters, which are given throughout the N. T., subdivided by letters.
R. Stephen's smaller edition (16mo), published in 1551 at Geneva, though that name is not on the title-page, is said to contain the Greek Text of 1550 almost unchanged180, set between the Vulgate and Erasmus' Latin versions. In this volume we first find our present division of the N. T. into verses: “triste lumen,” as Reuss calls it (p. 58), “nec posthac extinguendum.”
5. Theodore de Bèze [1519-1605], a native of Vezelai in the Nivernois, after a licentious youth, resigned his ecclesiastical preferments at the age of twenty-nine to retire with the wife of his early choice to Geneva, that little city to which the genius of one man has given so prominent a place in the history of the sixteenth century. His noble birth and knowledge of the world, aided by the impression produced at the Conference at Poissy (1561) by his eloquence and learning, easily gained for Beza the chief place among the French Reformed on the death of their teacher Calvin in 1564. Of his services in connexion with the two Codd. D we have already spoken: he himself put forth at intervals, besides his own elegant Latin version published in 1556, ten editions of the N. T. (viz. four in folio in the years 1565, 1582, 1588, 1598, and six in octavo in 1565, 1567, 1580, 1591, 1604, and 1611), the Latin Vulgate, and Annotations181. A better [pg 193] commentator perhaps than a critic, but most conspicuous as the earnest leader of a religious party, Beza neither sought very anxiously after fresh materials for correcting the text, nor made any great use of what were ready at hand, namely, his own two great codices, the papers of Henry Stephen, and Tremellius' Latin version of the Peshitto. All his editions vary somewhat from Stephen and from each other, yet there is no material difference between any of them182. He exhibits a tendency, not the less blameworthy because his extreme theological views would tempt him thereto, towards choosing that reading out of several which might best suit his own preconceived opinions. Thus in Luke ii. 22 he adopts (and our Authorized English version condescends to follow his judgement) τοῦ καθαρισμοῦ αὐτῆς from the Complutensian, for which he could have known of no manuscript authority whatever: ejus of the Vulgate would most naturally be rendered by αὐτοῦ (see Campbell in loc.). Wetstein calculates that Beza's text differs from Stephen's in some fifty places (an estimate we shall find below the mark), and that either in his translation or his Annotations he departs from Stephen's Greek text in 150 passages (Wetst. N. T., Proleg., Tom. ii. p. 7).
6. The brothers Bonaventure and Abraham Elzevir set up a printing-press at Leyden, which maintained its reputation for [pg 194] elegance and correctness throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century. One of their minute editions, so much prized by bibliomanists, was a Greek Testament, 24mo, 1624, alleging on the title-page (there is no Preface whatever) to be ex Regiis aliisque optimis editionibus cum curâ expressum: by Regiis, we presume, Stephen's editions are meant, and especially that of 1550. The supposed accuracy (for which its good name is not quite deserved) and the great neatness of this little book procured for it much popularity. When the edition was exhausted, a second appeared in 1633, having the verses broken up into separate sentences, instead of their numbers being indicated in the margin, as in 1624. In the Preface it seems to allude to Beza's N. T., without directly naming him: “Ex regiis ac ceteris editionibus, quae maxime ac prae ceteris nunc omnibus probantur.” To this edition is prefixed, as in 1624, a table of quotations (πίναξ μαρτυριῶν) from the Old Testament, to which are now added tables of the κεφάλαια of the Gospels, ἔκθεσις κεφαλαίων of the Acts and all the Epistles. Of the person entrusted with its superintendence we know nothing; nearly all his readings are found either in Stephen's or Beza's N. T. (he leans to the latter in preference183); but he speaks of the edition of 1624 as that “omnibus acceptam;” and boldly states, with a confidence which no doubt helped on its own accomplishment, “textum ergo habes nunc ab omnibus receptum, in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damus.” His other profession, that of superior correctness, is also a little premature: “ut si quae vel minutissimae in nostro, aut in iis, quos secuti sumus libris, superessent mendae, cum judicio ac cura tollerentur.” Although some of the worst misprints of the edition of 1624 are amended in that of 1633 (Matt. vi. 34; Acts xxvii. 13; 1 Cor. x. 10; Col. ii. 13; 1 Thess. ii. 17; Heb. viii. 9; 2 Pet. i. 7), others just as gross are retained (Acts ix. 3; Rom. vii. 2; xiii. 5; 1 Cor. xii. 23; xiii. 3; 2 Cor. iv. 4; v. 19; viii. 8; Heb. xii. 9; Apoc. iii. 12; vii. 7; xviii. 16), to which much be added a few peculiar to itself (e.g. Mark iii. 10; Rom. xv. 3; 1 Cor. ix. 2; 2 Cor. i. 11; vi. 16; Col. i. 7; iv. 7; Apoc. xxii. 3): ἐθύθη in 1 Cor. v. 7 should not be reckoned as an [pg 195] erratum, since it was adopted designedly by Beza, and after him by both the Elzevir editions. Of real various readings between the two Elzevirs we mark but seven or eight instances (in six of which that of 1633 follows the Complutensian); viz. Mark iv. 18; viii. 24; Luke xi. 33; xii. 20; John iii. 6 bis; 2 Tim. i. 12; iv. 51184; Apoc. xvi. 5: and in 2 Pet. i. 1 (as also in ed. 1641) ἡμῶν is omitted after σωτῆρος185.
Since Stephen's edition of 1550 and that of the Elzevirs have been taken as the standard or Received text186, the former chiefly in England, the latter on the Continent, and inasmuch as nearly all collated manuscripts have been compared with one or the other of these, it becomes absolutely necessary to know the precise points in which they differ from each other, even to the minutest errors of the press. Mill (N. T., Proleg., 1307) observed but twelve such variations; Tischendorf gives a catalogue of 150 (N. T., Proleg., p. lxxxv, seventh edition). For the first edition of the present work a list of 287 was drawn up, which, it is hoped, will soon be reprinted, in a more convenient shape, in a volume now in preparation187.
[pg 196]The Science of Sacred Textual Criticism was built up in successive Critical Editions of the Greek Testament, and to a brief description of those this chapter will be devoted. It will not include therefore any notice of editions like that of Valpy, or of Bloomfield, or Alford, or Wordsworth, in which the textual treatment did not assume prominence or involve advancement in this province. Still less is there space for such a list of general editions of the New Testament as the very valuable one compiled by Dr. Isaac H. Hall, and found in Schaffs “Companion to the New Testament,” to which notice has been already directed. The progress of Textual Science has involved two chief stages; the first, in which all evidence was accepted and registered, and the second, when a selection was made and the rest either partially or totally disregarded. Lachmann was the leader in the second stage, of which to some extent Griesbach was the pioneer. It is evident that in the future a return must be made, as has been already advocated by many, to the principles of the first stage188.
1. R. Stephen was the first to bring together any considerable body of manuscript evidence, however negligently or capriciously he may have applied it to the emendation of the sacred text. A succession of English scholars was now ready to follow him in the same path, the only direct and sure one in criticism; and for about eighty years our countrymen maintained the foremost place in this important branch of Biblical learning. Their van [pg 197] was led by Brian Walton [1600-61], afterwards Bishop of Chester, who published in 1657 the London Polyglott, which he had planned twelve years before, as at once the solace and meet employment of himself and a worthy band of colleagues during that sad season when Christ's Church in England was for a while trodden in the dust, and its ministers languished in silence and deep poverty. The fifth of his huge folios was devoted to the New Testament in six languages, viz. Stephen's Greek text of 1550189, the Peshitto-Syriac, the Latin Vulgate, the Ethiopic, Arabic, and (in the Gospels only) the Persic. The exclusively critical apparatus, with which alone we are concerned, consists of the readings of Cod. A set at the foot of the Greek text, and, in the sixth or supplementary volume, of Lucas Brugensis' notes on various readings of the Gospels in Greek and Latin; of those given by the Louvain divines in their edition of the Vulgate (Walton, Polygl., Tom. vi. No. xvii); and especially of a collation of sixteen authorities, whereof all but three, viz. Nos. 1, 15, 16190, had never been used before (Walton, Tom. vi. No. xvi). These various readings had been gathered by the care and diligence of Archbishop Ussher [1580-1656], then living in studious and devout retirement near London191. They are as follows:—(1) Steph. the sixteen copies extracted from Stephen's margin: (2) Cant. or Evan. D: (3) Clar. or Paul. D: (4) Gon. or Evan. 59: (5) Em. or Evan. 64, and also Act. 53: (6) Goog. or Evan. 62: (7) Mont. or Evan. 61: (8) Lin. or Evan. 56, and also Act. 33: (9) Magd. 1 or Evan. 57: (10) Magd. 2 or Paul. 42: (11) Nov. 1 or Evan. 58: (12) Nov. 2 or Act. 36: (13) Bodl. 1 or Evan. 47: (14) Trit. or Bodl. 2, Evan. 96: (15) March. Veles., the Velesian readings, described above, Vol. i. p. 209: (16) Bib. Wech., the Wechelian readings, which deserve no more regard than the Velesian. They were derived [pg 198] from the margin of a Bible printed at Frankfort, 1597, by the heirs of And. Wechel. It is indifferent whether they be referred to Francis Junius or F. Sylburg as editors, since all the readings in the New Testament are found in Stephen's margin, or in the early editions.
Walton was thus enabled to publish very extensive additions to the existing stock of materials. That he did not try by their means to form thus early a corrected text, is not at all to be regretted; the time for that attempt was not yet arrived. He cannot, however, be absolved from the charge to which R. Stephen had been before amenable, of suppressing a large portion of the collations which had been sent him. The Rev. C. B. Scott, Head Master of Westminster School, found in the Library of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, the readings of Codd. D. 59, 61, 62, prepared for Walton (Dobbin, Cod. Montfort., Introd. p. 21), which Mill had access to, and in his N. T. made good use of, as well as of Ussher's other papers (Mill, Proleg. § 1505).
2. Steph. Curcellaeus or Courcelles published his N. T. at Amsterdam in 1658, before he had seen Walton's Polyglott. The peculiar merit of his book arises from his marginal collection of parallel texts, which are more copious than those of his predecessors, yet not too many for convenient use: later editors have been thankful to take them as a basis for their own192. There are many various readings193 (some from two or three fresh manuscripts) at the foot of each page, or thrown into an appendix, mingled with certain rash conjectures which betray a Socinian bias: but since the authorities are not cited for each separate reading, these critical labours were as good as wasted194.
[pg 199]3. A more important step in advance was taken in the Greek Testament in 8vo, issued from the Oxford University Press in 1675. This elegant volume (whose Greek text is mainly that of Elzevir 1633195) was superintended by John Fell [1625-86], Dean of Christ Church, soon afterwards Bishop of Oxford, the biographer of saint-like Hammond, himself one of the most learned and munificent, if not quite the most popular Prelate, of that golden age of the English Church, in whose behalf Anthony à Wood designates him “the most zealous man of his time.” His brief yet interesting Preface not only discusses the causes of various readings196, and describes the materials used for his edition, but touches on that weak and ignorant prejudice which had been already raised against the collection of such variations in the text of Scripture; and that too sometimes by persons like John Owen197 the Puritan, intrusive Dean of Christ Church under Cromwell, who, but that we are loth to doubt his integrity, would hardly be deemed a victim of the panic he sought to spread. In reply to all objectors the Bishop pleads the comparative insignificance of the change produced by various readings in the general sense of Holy Writ, and especially urges that God hath dealt so bountifully with His people “ut necessaria quaeque et ad salutis summam facientia in S. literis saepius repeterentur; ita ut si forte quidpiam minus commode alicubi expressum, id damnum aliunde reparari possit” (Praef. p. 1). [pg 200] On this assurance we may well rest in peace. This edition is more valuable for the impulse it gave to subsequent investigators than for the richness of its own stores of fresh materials, although it is stated on the title-page to be derived “ex plus 100 MSS. Codicibus.” Patristic testimony, as we have seen, Bishop Fell rather undervalued: the use of versions he clearly perceived, yet of those at that time available, he only attends to the Gothic and Coptic as revised by Marshall: his list of manuscripts hitherto untouched is very scanty. To those used by Walton we can add only R, the Barberini readings, then just published (see p. 210); B, twelve Bodleian codices “quorum plerique intacti prius,” in no-wise described, and cited only by the number of them which may countenance each variation; U, the two Ussher manuscripts Evan. 63, 64 as collated by H. Dodwell; P, three copies from the Library of Petavius (Act. 38, 39, 40); Ge., another from St. Germains (Paul. E): the readings of the last four were furnished by Joh. Gachon. Yet this slight volume (for so we must needs regard it) was the legitimate parent of one of the noblest works in the whole range of Biblical literature, of which we shall speak next.
4. Novum Testamentum Graecum of Dr. John Mill, Oxford, 1707, in folio. This able and laborious critic, born in 1645, quitted his native village in Westmoreland at sixteen for Queen's College, Oxford, of which society he became a Fellow, and was conspicuous there both as a scholar and as a ready extemporary preacher. In 1685 his College appointed him Principal of its affiliated Hall, St. Edmund, so honourably distinguished for the Biblical studies of its members; but Mill had by that time made good progress in his Greek Testament, on which he gladly spent the last thirty years of his life, dying suddenly in 1707, a fortnight after its publication. His attention was first called to the subject by his friend, Dr. Edward Bernard, the Savilian Professor at Oxford, whom he vividly represents as setting before him an outline of the work, and encouraging him to attempt its accomplishment. “Vides, Amice mi, opus ... omnium, mihi crede, longè dignissimum, cui in hoc aetatis tuae flore, robur animi tui, vigilias ac studia, liberaliter impendas” (Proleg. § 1417). Ignorant as yet both of the magnitude and difficulty of his task, [pg 201] Mill boldly undertook it about 1677, and his efforts soon obtained the countenance of Bishop Fell, who promised to defray the expense of printing, and, mindful of the frailty of life, urged him to go to press before his papers were quite ready to meet the public eye. When about twenty-four chapters of St. Matthew had been completed, Bishop Fell died prematurely in 1686, and the book seems to have languished for many following years from lack of means, though the editor was busy all the while in gathering and arranging his materials, especially for the Prolegomena, which well deserve to be called “marmore perenniora.” As late as 1704 John Sharp [1644-1714], Archbishop of York, whose remonstrances to Queen Anne some years subsequently hindered the ribald wit that wrote “A Tale of a Tub” from polluting the episcopal throne of an English see, obtained from her for Mill a stall at Canterbury, and the royal command to prosecute his New Testament forthwith. The preferment came just in time. Three years afterwards the volume was given to the Christian world, and its author's course was already finished: his life's work well ended, he had entered upon his rest. He was spared the pain of reading the unfair attack alike on his book and its subject by our eminent Commentator, Daniel Whitby (“Examen Variantium Lectionum,” 1710), and of witnessing the unscrupulous use of Whitby's arguments made by the sceptic Anthony Collins in his “Discourse of Free Thinking,” 1713.
Dr. Mill's services to Biblical criticism surpass in extent and value those rendered by any other, except perhaps one or two men of our own time. A large proportion of his care and pains, as we have seen already, was bestowed on the Fathers and ancient writers of every description who have used or cited Scripture. The versions are usually considered his weakest point, although he first accorded to the Vulgate and to its prototype the Old Latin the importance they deserve. His knowledge of Syriac was rather slight, and for the other Eastern tongues, if he was not more ignorant than his successors, he had not discovered how little Latin translations of the Ethiopic, &c., can be trusted. As a collator of manuscripts the list subjoined will bear full testimony to his industry: without seeking to repeat details we have entered into before under the Cursive MSS., it is right to state that he either himself re-examined, or otherwise [pg 202] represented more fully and exactly, the codices that had been previously used for the London Polyglott and the Oxford N. T. of 1675. Still it would be wrong to dissemble the fact that Mill's style of collation is not such as the strictness of modern scholarship demands. He seldom notices at all such various readings as arise from the transposition of words, the insertion or omission of the Greek article, from homoeoteleuta, or itacisms, or from manifest errors of the pen; while in respect to general accuracy he is as much inferior to those who have trod in his steps, as he rises above Stephen and Ussher, or the persons employed by Walton and Fell. It has been my fortune to collate not a few manuscripts after this great critic, and I have elsewhere been obliged to notice these plain facts, I would fain trust in no disparaging temper. During the many years that Mill's N. T. has been my daily companion, my reverence for that diligent and earnest man has been constantly growing: the principles of internal evidence which guided his choice between conflicting authorities were simple (as indeed they ought to be), but applied with rare judgement, sagacity, and moderation: his zeal was unflagging, his treatment of his sacred subject deeply reverential. Of the criticism of the New Testament in the hands of Dr. John Mill it may be said, that he found the edifice of wood, and left it marble.
The following Catalogue of the manuscripts known to Mill exhibits the abridged form in which he cites them, together with the more usual notation, whereby they are described in this work, and will tend, it is believed, to facilitate the use of Mill's N. T.
Alex. Cod. A
Barb. Evan. 112 (Wetstein)
Baroc. Act. 23
B. 1 Evan. E
B. 2 Act. 2
B. 3 Act. 4
Bodl. 1 Evan. 45
Bodl. 2 Evan. 46
Bodl. 3 Evst. 5
Bodl. 4 Evst. 18
Bodl. 5 Evst. 19
Bodl. 6 Evan. 47
Bodl. 7 Evan. 48
Bu. Evan. 70
Cant. Evan. Act. D
Cant. 2 Act. 24
Cant. 3 Act. 53
Clar. Paul. D
Colb. 1 Evan. 27
Colb. 2 Evan. 28
Colb. 3 Evan. 29
Colb. 4 Evan. 30, 31
Colb. 5 Evan. 32
Colb. 6 Act. 13
Colb. 7 Paul. 17
Colb. 8 Evan. 33
Colb. 9 = Colb. 1