an introduction to the textual criticism of the new testament (b. b. warfield, 1887)b. b. warfield...

7/28/2019 An Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament (B. B. Warfield, 1887)B. B. Warfield Library

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THETHEOLOGICAL EDUCATOR.

EdiUd by tlitREV. W. ROBERTSON NICOLL, M.A.,

Editor of " The Expositor."

PROFESSOR WARFIELD'STEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

HODDER AND STOUGHTON,27, PATERNOSTER ROW.


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AN INTRODUCTION..TO THETEXTUAL CRITICISMOF THENEW TESTAMENT.

BY niE REV.BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD, D.D.,Professor of New Testament Criticism in the Western Theological

Seminary, Allegheny, U.S.A.


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In compliance with currentcopyright law, LBS Archival

Products produced thisreplacement volume on paperthat meets the ANSI StandardZ39.48-1984 to replace theirreparably deteriorated

original.

1993_^ TM60)


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PKEFACE.r

I 1HIS little treatise purports to be a primer, and-L a primer to the art of textual criticism ratherthan to the science. Its purpose will be served ifthe reader is prepared by it to exercise the art inthe usual processes, and to enter upon the studyof the science in such books as Dr. Hort's '' In-troduction," and Dr. Gregory's " Prolegomena " toTischendorf's eighth edition. In such a primarytreatise, and where no claim to originality is made,obligations to previous works can scarcely be acknow-ledged. The author hopes that his general confessionof having made use of everything that he could layhis hands upon that served his purpose, will bedeemed sufficient acknowledgment of the many debtshe is conscious of, and would like, if occasion served,to confess in detail.

Allegheny, Midsicmmcr 188G.


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CORRIGENDA.Page 25, line 5 (and often elsewhere, as, e. g., pp. 26, 216,

217, 220, 224), for " Sclioltz" read "Scholz."Page 25, line 16, for "it"" read "it"'."Page 25, line 18, for ' read p'.Page 30, line 13, after " 13" insert " of the Acts."Page 36, line 13, for " Wesserlv," read " Wessely."Page 37, line 2. This statement is misleading. The

Arabs appear to have brought cotton paper to theWestern world about the eighth century. Theoldest dated Arabic MSS. , on cotton paper comefrom the ninth century, e. g., the Leiden Gharibu']-Hadith from 866. The earliest examples inEuropean languages come from the countrieswhich were most closely in contact with theArabs, e. g., Sicily (1102. 1145, and the like). Theoldest dated Greek MS., on cotton paper, is theVienna Codex dated 1095 ; next we have aEuchologium (No. 973 of Gardthausen's CatalogusCodd Oro'corinn Sinaiticoruin), dated 1153 ; andby the middle of the thirteenth century they aresomewhat numerous. The Lectioiiary referred toin the text is No. 191 of the lists (Scrivener, III.,p. 292). An Asceticum (No. 468 of Gardthausen'sCatalogus, just quoted), on cotton paper, is writtenin uncials of ilie tenlh or eleventh century.

Page 42, lines 11 and .SI, for ''' HF.qjdXfia" read" HEq^dXaia."

Page 60, line 6, for " Wesserly " read " Wessely."Page 60, line 15, for " Evangelaria" read "Evangeliaria."Page 67, line 12. The ago of the European Latin may be

more accurately set from Prof. Sanday's investi-gations. He shows that it was certainly used by


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70, last line. This exception may probably bedeleted.

78, list of fathers : correct tlie spelling of C'YPRIANUS,and the date from .J- 247 to 4. 258 ; and writeHilarvis, HiLARIUS, and correct the date from449 to !" 368. (Hilary of Poictiers is intended.)

86, line 18, for "Maclellan" read "McClellan."95, last line, for " Acts ix. 56," read "Acts ix. 5, 6."98, last line but one, the dash over oic ought to

stand over ic only.100, last line but one, for " ou " read " 01'."102, line 8, for " terms " read " turns "170, last line but two, for "thsue pport " read " the

support."172, line 21, insert {< before B, L, A, etc., in those

copies from which it has fallen out.179, line 6, omit " C" after "D."202, line 16, after "rarely" insert "in Greek MSS."

/Cl.


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CONTENTS.pi.eB

Introductory ' 1

CHAPTER IThe Matter of Criticism 16

CHAPTER II.The Methods of Criticism 82

CHAPTER III.The Praxis of Criticism 182

CHAPTER IV.The History of Criticism 211


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INTRODUCTORY.rr^HE word "text" properly denotes a literary-L work, conceived of as a mere thing, as atexture woven of words instead of threads. Itdesignates neither, on the one side, the book whichcontains the text, nor, on the other side, the sensewhich the text conveys. It is not the matter ofthe discourse, nor the manner of it, whether logical,rhetorical, or grammatical. It is simply the web ofwords itself. It is with this understanding that thetext of any work is concisely defined as the ipsissivuiverba of that work.The word, which came into Middle English from

the French where it stands as the descendant of theLatin word textum, retains in English the figurativesense only of its primitive, yet owes it to its originthat it describes a composition as a woven thing, as acuriously interwoven cloth or tissue of words. Once apart of the English language, it has grown with thegrowth of that tongue, and has acquired certain specialusages. We usually need to speak of the exact wordsof an author only in contrast with something else, and


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2 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.comments that have been added. Thus we speak ofthe text of the Talmud as lost in the comment. Andthus, too, by an extreme extension, we speak of thetext of a sermon, meaning, not the ipsissima verbaof the sermon, but the little piece of the originalauthor on which the sermon professes to be a com-ment. By a somewhat similar extension we speak oftexts of Scripture, meaning, not various editions of itsipsissima verba, but brief extracts from Scripture, asfor example proof texts and the like ;a usage whichappears to have grown up under the conception thatall developed theology is of the nature of a commenton Scripture. Such secondary senses of the wordneed not disturb us here. They are natural develop-ments out of the ground meaning, as applied tospecial cases. We are to use the word in its generaland original sense, in which it designates the ipsissimaverba, the woven web of words, which constitutes theconcrete thing by which a book is made a work, butwhich has nothing directly to do with the sense,correctness, or the value of the work.

There is an importan t distinction, however, whichwe should grasp at the outset, between the text of adocument and the text of a work. A document canhave but one text ; its ipsissima verba are its ipsissimaverba, and there is nothing further to say about it.But a work may exist in several copies, each of whichhas its own ipsissima verba, which may, or may not,tally with one another. The text of any copy of


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INTRODUCTOHY. ?,we have to reckon with the printijig press, we mustrather say no two editions,have precisely the sametext. There are all kinds of causes that work differ-ences : badness of copy, carelessness of compositors,folly of editors, imperfection of evidence, frailty ofhuma.nity. We' know what the text of Karl Elze'sHamlet is. But what is the text of Hamlet ? Wecannot choose any one edition, and say that it is thetext of Hamlet ; it is one text of Hamlet, but notnecessarily the text of Hamlet. We cannot chooseone manuscript of Homer, and say that it is the textof Homer. It is a text of Homer, but the text ofHomer may be something very different. We note,then, that the text of a document and the text of awork may be very different matters. The text of adocument is the ipsisslma verba of that document, andis to be had by simply looking at it ; whatever standsactually written in it is its text. The text of a work,again, is the ipsissima verba of that woi'k, but it cannotbe obtained by simply looking at it. We cannot lookat the work, but only at the documents or " copies"that represent it ; and what stands written in them,individually or even collectively, may not lie theipsissima verba of the work,by exactly the amount,in each case, in which it is altered or corrupted fromwhat the author intended to A\T.nte, is not the i])sissiinaverba of the work. If, then, the text of a documentor copy of any work is the ipsissima verba of thatdocument or copy, the text of the Avork is what ought


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4 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.author. It may not lie in the document before us,or in any document. All existing documents, takencollectively, may fail to contain it. It may neverhave lain, perfect and pure, in any document. Butif an element of ideality thus attaches to it, it isnone the less a very real thing and a very legitimateobject of search. It is impossible, no doubt, to avoida certain looseness of speech, by which we say, forexample, " The text of Nonius is in a very bad state ;

"and thus identify the text of a work with sometransitory state of it, or it may be with the perma-nent loss of it. What we mean is that the text inthis or that document or edition, or in all existingdocuments or editions, is a very bad and corrupt repre-sentation of the text of Nonius,is not the text ofNonius at all, in fact, but departs from, and fails to be,that in many particulars. The text of Nonius, in aword, is just what we have not and are in search of.

It is clear, therefore, that the text of a work as

Idistinguished from the text of a document can be hadonly through a critical process. What is necessaryfor obtaining it is a critical examination of the textsof the various documents that lie before us as itsrepresentatives, with a view to discovering from themwhether and wherein it has become corrupted, and ofproving them to preserve it or else restoring it fromtheir corruptions to its origin.ally intended form.This is what is meant hj " textual criticism," whichmay be defined as the careful, critical examination


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INTRODUCTORY. 5Obviously this is, if not a bold and unsafe kind

of work, yet one sufficiently nice to engage our bestpowers. It is not, however, so unwonted a procedureas it may seem at hrst sight ; and more of us thansuspect it are engaged in it daily. Whenever, forinstance, we make a correction in the margin of abook we chance to be reading, because we observea misplaced letter or a misspelled word, or any otherobvious typographical error, we are engaging in pi'O-cesses of textual criticism. Or, perhaps, we receive aletter from a friend, read it cai^efully, suddenly comeupon a sentence that puzzles us, observe it moreclosely, and say, "Oh, I see ! a word has been left outhere ! " There is no one of us who has not had thisexperience, or who has not supplied the word whichhe determines to be needed, and gone on satisfied.Let us take an apposite example or two from printedbooks. When we read in Archdeacon Farrar'sMessages of the Books (p. 145, note ^) : "That Godchose His own fit instruments " for writing the booksof the New Testament, " and that the sacredness of thebooks was due to the piior position of these writersis clear from the fact that only four of the writei'swere apostles " few of us will hesitate to insertthe "not" before "due," the lack of which throws thesentence into logical confusion. So, when we I'eadin the admirable International Reoisioa Coiimietitari/on John's Gospel, by Drs. Milligan and Muulton(p. 341) : " Yet we should overlook the immediate

"


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6 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.1631, men read the seventh commandment (Exod.XX. 14): "Thou shalt commit adultery," not withoutperceiving:, we may be sure, that a " not " had fallenout, and mentally replacing it all the more emphatic-ally that it was not there. But all this is textualcriticism of the highest and most delicate kind. Wehave, in each case, examined the text befoi'e uscritically, determined that it was in erroi-, and restoredthe originally intended text by a critical process.Yet we do all this confidently, with no feeling that weare trenching on learned ground, and with results thatare entii'cly satisfactory to ourselves, and on whichwe are willing to act in business or social life. Thecases that have been adduced involve, indeed, the verynicest and most uncertain of the critical pi'ocesses :they are all samples of what is called " conjecturalemendation" i.e., the text has been emended in eachcase by pure conjecture, the context alone hintingthat it was in ei-ror or suggesting the remedy. Thedangers that attend the careless or uninstructed useof so delicate an instrument are well illustrated bya delightful story (which Mr. Fi'ederic Harrisonattributes to INIr. Andrew Lang) of a printer whofound in liis '"copy" some reference to "the Scapinof Foquelin." The printer was not a pedant ; Molierehe knew, but who was Poquelin ? At last a brightidea struck his inventive mind, and he printed it" the Scapin of M. Coquelin." This is " conjecturalemendation " too ; and unhappily it is the type of


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INTRODUCTOliY. 7critic; for tlie correction of a text that lies before himby the readings of another, given him as a model,is simply the lowest variety of this art. The art oftextual criticism is thus seen to be the art of detectingand emending errors in documents. The science isthe orderly discussion and systematisation of theprinciples on which this art ought to proceed.The inference lies very close, from what has been

said, that the sphere of the legitimate application oftextual ci'iticivsm is circumscribed only by the boundsof written matter. Such are the limitations ofhviman powers in reproducing writings, that appa-rently no lengthy writing can be duplicated withoviterror. Nay, such ai-e the limitations of humanpowers of attention, that probably few manuscriptsof any extent are Avi-itten exactly correctly at firsthand. The author himself fails to put correctly onpaper the words that lie in his mind. And evenwhen the document that lies before us is written wdthabsolutely exact correctness, it requires the applica-tion of textual criticism, i.e., a careful critical ex-amination, to discover and certify this fact. Let usrepeat it, then : wherever written matter exists,textual criticism is not oiily legitimate, but an un-jivoidable task ; when the writing is important, suchas a deed, or a will, or a chartei-, or the Bible, it isan indefeasible duty. No doubt, differences may existbetween writings, in their nature or the conditionsunder which they were produced or transmitted, which

:\


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8 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.which one is transmitted by hand-copying ; and thepractice of textual criticism may be affected by thisdifference. One work may lie before us in a singlecopy, another in a thousand copies, and differencesmay thence arise in the processes of ciiticism that areapplicable to them. But all writings have this incommon : they are all open to criticism, and are allto be criticised. An autograph writing is open tocriticism ; we must examine it to see whether thewriter's hand has been faultless handmaid to histhought, and to correct his erroneous writing of whathe intended. A printed work is open to criticism :we must examine it to see what of the aimless altera-tion that has been wrought by a compositor's nimblebut not infallible lingers, and what of the foolishaltei'ation which the semi-unconscious working of hismind lias inserted into his copy, the proof-reader hasallowed to stand. A ^vliting propagated by manu-script is especially open to criticism : here so manyvarying minds, and so many varying hands, haverepeated each its predecessor's errors, and inventednew ones, that criticism must dig through repeatedstrata of corruption on corruption befoi'C it can reachthe bed-rock of truth.Nor is the arc a wide one through which even the

processes of criticism which are applicable to thesevarious kinds of writings can librate. The existenceof corruptions in a writing can be suggested to us byonly two kinds of evidence. One of these is illus-trated by our detection of misprints in the books


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INTRODUCTORY. 9context or general sense ; to this is to be added, as ofthe same generic kind, the evidence of the style,vocabulary or usage of the author, or of the time inwhich he wrote, and the like,all the evidence, in aword, that arises from the consideration of what theauthor is likely to have written. The name that isgiven to this is internal evidence , and it is the onlykind of evidence that is available for an autographicwriting, or any other that exists only in a singlecopy. But if two or more copies are extant, anotherliind of evidence becomes available. We may com-pare the copies together, and wherever they differone or the other testimony is certainly at fault, andcritical examination and reconstruction is necessary.This is external evidence. When we proceed fromthe detection of error to its correction, we remaindependent on these same two kinds of evidenceinternal and external. But internal evidence splitshere into two well-marked and independent varieties,much to our help. We may appeal to the evidence ofthe context or other considerations that rest on thequestion. What is the author likely to have written?to suggest to us what ought to stand in tlie placewhere a corruption is suspected or known ; and thisis called intrinsic (internal) eindence. Or we mayappeal to the fortunes of reproduction, to the knownhabits of stone-cutters, copyists, or compositors, tosuggest what the reading or readings known or sus-pected to be corruptions may have grown out of, orwhat reading, on the supposition of its originality,


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10 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.the other hand, we may coHate all known copies, andappeal to the evidence that a great majority of themliave one reading, and only a few the others ; or all thegood and careful ones have one, and only the bad theothers ; or several derived from independent sourceshave one, and only such as can be shown to come froma single fountain have the others ; and so marshalthe external evideiice. If we allow for their broad andinadequate statement, proper to this summary treat-ment, we may cay that it matters not whether thewriting before us be a letter from a friend, or aninscription from Carchemish, or a copy of a morningnewspaper, or Shakespeare, orHomer, or the Bible, theseand only these are the kinds of evidence applicable.And so far as they are applicable they are valid. Itwould be absurd to apply them to Homer, and refuseto apply them to Herodotus ; to apply them to Nonius,whose text is provei-bially corrupt, and refuse to applythem to the New Testament, the text of which is in-comparably correct. It is by their application alonethat we know what is corrupt and what is correctand if it is right to apply them to a secular book, itis right to apply them to a sacred one nay, it iswi'ong not to.

It is clear, moreover, that the duty of applyingtextual criticismsay, for instance, to the New Tes-tamentis entirely independent of the number oferrors in its ordinarily current text which criticismmay be expected to detect. It is as important tocertify ourselves of the correctness of our text as it is


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INTRODUCTORY. 11error to be thought to be commensurable with ei-ror insense. The text conveys the sense ; but the textualcritic has nothing to do, primarily, with the sense.It is for him to restore the text, and for the intei-preter who follows him to reap the new meaning.Divergencies which leave the sense wholly unaflectedmay be to him very substantial errors. It is evenpossible that he may find a copy painfully corrupt,from which, nevertheless, precisely the same senseflows as if it had been written with perfect accuracy.It is of the deepest interest, nevertheless, to inquire,even with this purely textual meaning, how muchcorrection the texts of the New Testament in generalcirculation need before they are restored substantiallyto their original form. The reply will necessarilyvary according to the standard of comparison Avhicliwe assume. If we take an ordinarily well printedmodern book as a standard, the New Testament, in itscommonly current text, will appear sorely corrupt.This is due to the different conditions under which anancient and a modern book come before a modernaudience. The repeated proof-correcting l)y expertreaders and author alike in a modern printing-officeas preliminary to the issue of a .single copy ; theability to issue thousands of identical copies from thesame plates ; the opportunities given to correct theplates for new issues, so that each new issue is sure tobe an improvement on the last : all this conspires tothe attainment of a very high degree of accuracy.


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12 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.repeating tho.se of its j^redecessor ; each fresh copythat was called for, instead of being struck off fromthe old and now newly corrected plates, was madelaboriously and erroneously from a previous one,perpetuating its errors, old and new, and introducingstill newer ones of its own manufacture. A long lineof ancestiy gradually grows up behind each copy insuch circumstances, and the race gradually butinevitably degenerates, until, after a thousand yearsor so, the number of fixed errors becomes considerable.When at last the printing press is invented, and thework put through it, not the author's autograph, butthe latest manuscript is printei''s copy, and no author'seye can overlook the sheets. The best the press cando is measurably to stop the growth of corruption andfaithfully to perpetuate all that has already grown.No wondei- that the current New Testament text mustbe adjudged, in comparison with a well printed modernbook, extremely corrupt.On the other hand, if we compare the present state

of the New Testament text with that of any otherancient writing, we must render the opposite verdict,and declare it to be marvellously cori-ect. Such hasbeen the care with which the New Testament hasbeen copied,a care which has doubtless grown out oftrue reverence for its holy words, such has been theprovidence of God in jjreserving for His Chui'ch ineach and every age a competently exact text of theScriptures, that not only is the New Testamentunrivalled among ancient writings in the purity of its


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INTRODUCTORY. 13to us for castigating its comparatively infrequentblemishes. The divergence of its current text fromthe autograph may shock a modern printer of modernbooks ; its wonderful approximation to its autogriH)liis the undisguised envy of every modern reader ofancient books.When vsre attempt to state the amount of corrup-

tion which the New Testament has suffered in itstransmission through two millenniums, absolutelyinstead of thus relatively, we reach scarcely moreintelligible results. Koughly speaking, there have (been counted in it some hundred and eighty or two [;hundred thousand " various readings "that is, actual yvariations of reading in existing documents. Theseare, of course, the result of corruption, and hence themeasure of corruption. But we must guanl againstbeing misled by this very misleading statement. Itis not meant that there are nearly two hundredthousand places in the New Testament where variousi-eadings occur ; but only that there are nearly twohundred thousand various readings all told ; and inmany cases the documents so differ among themselvesthat many are counted on a single word. For eachdocument is compared in turn with the one standard,and the number of its divergences ascertained ; thenthese sums are themselves added together, and theresult given as the number of actually observedvariations. It is obvious that each place where avariation occurs is counted as many times over, not


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14 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.kinds and in all sources, even those that are singularto a single document of infinitesimal weight as awitness, and even those that afiect such very minormatters as the spelling of a word. Dr. Ezra Abbot

f was accustomed to say that about nineteen-twentiethsI of them have so little support that, although they arei various readings, no one would think of them as rival> readings ; and nineteen-tAventieths of the remainderare of so little importance that their adoption ^rrejection would cause no apprecinble dift'erence in thesense of the passages where they occur. Dr. Hort'sway of stating it is that upon about one woi'd in everyeight various I'cadings existf supported by sufficientevidence to bid us pause and look at it ; that aboutone word in sixty has various readings upon itsupported by such evidence as to render our decisionnice and difficult .; but that so many of these varia-tions are trivial that only about one word in everythousand has upon it substantial variation supportedby such evidence as to call out the efforts of thecritic in deciding between the readings.The great mass of the New Testament, in otherwords, has been ti-ansmitted to us with no, or next to

no, variation ; and even in the most cori'upt form inwhich it has ever appeared, to use the oft-quotedwords of Richard Bentley, " the real text of the

\ sacred writers is competently exact ; . . . nor is onearticle of faith or moral precept either perverted orlost . . . choose as awkwardly as you will, choose theworst by design, cut of the whole lump of readings."


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INTRODUCTORY. 15it to a conclusion under the inspiration of hope. Theautographic text of the New Testament is distinctlywithin the reach of criticism in so immensely thegreater part of the volume, that we cannot despair ofrestoring to ourselves and the Church of God, HisBook, word for word, as He gave it by inspiration tomen.The following pages are intended as a primary

guide to students making their first acquaintancewith the art of textual criticism as applied to theNew Testament. Their purpose will be subserved ifthey enable them to make a. beginning, and to entei*into the study of the text-books on the subject withease and comfort to themselves.


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CHAPTER I.THE MATTER OF CRITICISM.

THE first duty of the student who is seeking thetrue text of the New Testament is obviously

to collect and examine the witnesses to that text.Whatever professes to be the Greek New Testamentis a witness to its text. Thus we observe that copiesof the Greek Testament are our primary witnesses toits text. The first duty of the textual critic is, there-fore, to collect the copies of the Greek Testament, and,comparing them together, cull from them all theirvarious readings. He will not only acquire in thisway knowledge of the variations that actually exist,but also bring together, by noting the copies thatsupport each reading, the testimony for each, and puthimself in a position to arrive at an intelligent con-clusion as to the best attested text. It is obvious thatno external circumstances, such as the form of thevolume in which it is preserved, or the mechanicalprocess by which it is made, whether by printing orby hand-copying, will aflfect the witness-bearing of acopy to the text it professes to represent. Printed


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THE MATTER OF CRITICIS2I. 17good text from printed copies alone. Nevertheless,the universal consent by which printed copies are setaside and manuscripts alone used as witnesses restson sound reason. The first printed Greek Testament iwas completed in 1514, and hence all printed copies Vare comparatively late copies, and therefore presump-tively inferior as witnesses of tlie original text to themanuscript copies, almost all of which are oldei- thanthe sixteenth century. Still more to the point : allprinted copies have been made from the manuscriptcopies, and therefoi-e, in the presence of the manu-scripts themselves, are mere i-epeatei'S of their ^\'itness,and of no value at all as additional testimony to theoi'iginal text. Wherever the pi'inted copies agreewith the manuscripts, they have been taken fromthem, and add nothing to their testimonythey arecollusive witnesses ; wherever they present readingsthat are found in no manuscript, this is due either toaccidental error, and is therefore of no value as testi-mony, or to editorial emendation, and represents,therefore, not testimony to what the original NewTestament contained, but opinion as to what it musthave contained. In no case, therefore, are printedcopies available as witnesses, and the manuscriptcopies alone are treated as such.

Alongside of the manuscripts as the primary wit- rnesses to the New Testament text may be placed, as \secondary witnesses, translations of the Greek Testa- 'ment into other languages. Although a version does


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18 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.text that conveys it. No doubt we could not repro-duce the text of the New Testament from versionsalone, even though we could gain from them theentire sense of the volume. No doubt, too, theal)ility of a version to witness on special points willdepend on the genius of the language into which theGreek has been transmuted. For example, the Latincan seldom testify to the presence or absence of thearticle. But in conjunction with Greek manuscripts,and when regard is paid to the limitations of thevarious tongues in which they exist, the testimony ofversions may reach even primary importance in thecase of all variations that affect the sense. Especiallyin questions of insertion or omission of sections,clauses, or words, they may give no more uncertainvoice than Greek manuscripts themselves.For use as a witness to the text of the Greek Testa-

ment it is absolutely necessary that a version shouldhave been made immediately from the Greek andnot from some other version. In the latter case itis a direct witness only to the text of the versionfi'om which it was made, anti only in case of the lossof that version can it be used as a mediate witnessto the Greek text. Furthermore, it is desirable thata version shall have been made sufficiently early forits witness to be borne to the Greek text of a timefrom which few monuments of it have come down tous. Ordinarily a vei'sion is made from the Greek manu-scripts in current use at the time, and if this time be


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THE MATTER OF CRITICISM. 19in criticism. The English version, for example,/although taken immediately from the Greek by'Tyndale in 1525, and repeatedly revised by the Greeksince, is of inappreciable value as a witness to theGreek text, on account of the lateness of its origin.The use to which a version may be put in textualcriticism depends still further on the exactness withwhich it renders the Greek ; a slavishness of literalrendering which would greatly lessen its usefulnessas a version would give it only additional value asa witness to the Gi-eek text. For example, the Har-clean Syriac version, which must have been a trial tothe fiesh of every Syrian i-eader who tried to makeuse of it, reveals its underlying Greek text as perhapsno other ancient version is able to do. Under suchsafeguards as these, the ancient, immediate versions ofthe Greek Testament may be ranged alongside of themanuscripts as co-witnesses to its text.

Still additional testimony can be obtained to thetext of special passages of the Greek Testament byattending to the quotations made from the GreekTestament by those who have used it or written uponit. Whenever a reputable Avi-iter declares that hisGreek Testament reads thus, and not thus, for asmuch of the text as it covers his assertion is equal invalue as a witness, to a Greek manuscript of his day.And the ordinary quotations from the Greek Testa-ment by early writers ai'e, so far as they are accuratelymade, of real worth as testimony to the texts current


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20 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.with which he ordinarily quotes, and even with thecharacter of the work in which the quotation occurs.For example, a citation in a polemic treatise, bentmayhap to tit the need, will be jirimd facie, less to bedepended on, in the oimiutice of the wording, thana lengthy quotation in a commentary copied out forthe express purpose of explaining its very words. Sofar, however, as this patristic evidence is availableat all, and can be depended on, it is direct evidenceas distinguished from the indirect character of theevidence of translations, and cannot be neglectedwithout sei'ious loss.The collection of the evidence for the text of the

New Testament includes, thus, the gathering togetherof all the manuscripts of the Greek Testament, of allthe ancient, immediate translations made from it, andof all citations taken from it by early writers ; thecomparing of all these together and noting of theirdivergences or " various readings " ; and the attach-ing to each *' various reading " the list of witnessesthat support it. The labour required for such a taskdepends, of course, on the wealth of witnessing docu-ments that exist and need examining, or '' collating,"as it is technically called. If, for instance, we weredealing with the first six books of the " Annals " ofTacitus, the task ^\ould be .an easy one ; there wouldbe but a single manuscript to examine, no version, andbefoie the fifteenth century but a single quotation. Inthe New Testament, on the other hand, the number of


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THE MATTER OF CRITICISM. 21searched for quotations. In the '' Annals " of Tacitus,again, as we have but a single manuscript and nothingto collate with it, we should have no various readingsat all, while in the New Testament we must needsface, before the work of collation is more than halfcompleted, not less than two hundred thousandwhence it is easy to see, we may remark in passing,that this gi-eat number of various readings is not dueto greater corruption of the New Testament text thanis ordinarily found in ancient writings, but to theimmensely greater number of witnessing documentsthat has come down to us for it, over and abovewhat has reached us for any other ancient workwhatever. It is also immediately apparent, however,that no one man and no one generation could hopeto bring to completion the task of collecting thevarious readings of the New Testament with thefull evidence for each. As a matter of fact, this workhas been performing now, by a succession of diligentand self-denying scholars, since the undertaking ofWalton's Polyglot in 1657, Already in Mill's day(1707) as many as 30,000 various readings had beencollected; and from Bentley and Wetstein to Tisch-endorf, Tregelles, and Scrivener, the work has beenprosecuted without intermission, until it has nowreached relative completeness, and the time is ripefor the estimation of the great mass of evidence thathas been gathered. It must not be inferred fromthis that all the known manusciipts of the New


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22 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.additions are made to the mass of facts already known.But now, at length, enough have been collated togive ns knowledge of the general character of thewhole, and to place the testimony of all the oldestand most valuable in detail before our eyes. Thescholar of to-day, while beckoned on by the exampleof the great collators of the past to continue the workof gathering material as strength and opportunity-may allow, yet enters into a great inheritance of workalready done, and is able to undertake the work oftextual criticism itself as distinguished from thecollecting of material for that work.The results of the collations that were made

before the publication of those gi'eat works have beencollected and spread orderly befoi-e the eye of thestudent in the critical editions of the Greek ISTewTestament edited by Dr. Tregelles and Dr. Tischen-dorf. With the "digests of readings " given in theseworks the beginner may well content himself. Hewill discover later that such digests have not beenframed and printed without some petty errors of detailcreeping in, and will learn to correct these and add theresults of more recent collations. But he will under-stand more and more fully every year that he pro-secutes his studies, what monuments of diligence andpainstaking care these digests are, and how indispen-sable they are for all futui'e work. Every studentwho purposes to devote any considerable time to thestudy of this branch of sacred learning should procureat the outset either Dr. Tregelles' llie Greek Neio


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THE MATTER OF CPJTICISM. 23in 4to parts) ; or else, and preferably, Dr. TiscliendorfsNovum Testamentum Graxe ad antiquissimos testesdenuo recensuit, etc. Editio octava critica viaior(Leipzig, 18691872, 2 vols. 8vo). A "minor"edition of Tiscliendorf, described as " editio critica'minor ecc viii. maiore destciiipfa" (Leipzig, 1877,1 vol. thick 12mo), contains an excellent compresseddigest, and will suffice for the needs of those who canill afford the large edition, or who can put but littletime on the study of this subject. One or anotherof these three editions is, however, little less thnna necessary prerequisite for the profitable .study oftextual criticism.The compression with which the evidence for the

vai^ious readings is given in the digests makes thenotes of a critical edition appear little less than in-soluble enigmas to the uninitiated eye, and renders itnecessary to give the beginner some hints as to theiruse. Let us take a sample note at random. We openTischendorf's eighth edition at Mark i. 11, and findhis text to run : Kat (jjwinj ck tu)v ovparCov' crv ei o vl6


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24 TEXTUAL CIUTICISM.qiu riiihi bene complacuisti) :: ita Mt, ev crot et.Lc ; cf et. evg. Ebion. ad Mt 3, 17 | ^v^oK-qaacum nABD: KLMUn ^1 pi . . . D^EFHVrAal pm rivhoK."We observe first that the language of the notes is

Latin, but that every -word is ablireviated which canbe abbreviated, and the compression goes so far asto omit even the point which usually stands at the endof a contracted word. We note next that a verticalline, thus

|, divides between notes on different words ;

so tliat there are three separate notes on verse 1 1 ,oneon (jujivrj, one on ev ctol, and one on evSoK-rjaa. A seriesof points, thus . , ., marks the transition from theevidence for one reading to that for a rival reading.Next we note that the testimony is cited by means ofsymbols, either letters or numerals, representing thewitnessing documents, the full names of which wouldextend the note to unmanageable proportions, as wellas present so poor a mai-k for the eye as to doublethe labour of using the digest. The abbreviations ofLatin Avords as well as all symbols peculiar to thisbook are explained in a preliminary list prefixed tothe volume. With this mucli of explanation we maymanage to i-ead tlie cyplicr before us thus :

" (f)on'r) [i.e. without any verb, as the latter half ofthe note tells us, is read in the text al)ove, in accord-ance] with [the testimony of the following witnesses,to wit]." Then follow the symbols of the witnessingdocuments, two of which in this case (those repre-sented by the two capital lettei's, a*!)) are Greek


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THE MATTER OF CRITICISM. 25cates the passage over to the other side of the evidence,where we read : " 5* [a conventional symbol, indicatinghere the editions of the New Testament published byRobert Stephens in 1550 and the Elzevirs in 1624,together with those of Griesbach (1827) and Schol/z v^(1830)], Ln, \i.c. Lachmann's edition, 1842], Ti. ['i.e.Tischendorf's earlier edition, 1859, called his seventh]add cyevero [so that they read fjaavr} cyevero] with [thefollowing witnesses, to wit]". Then again followsthe enumeration of the witnesses by symbols. In thiscase five Greek manuscripts are named, under thesymbols, x", A, B, L, P, with the additional informa-tion that " eleven other uncials [i.e. Greek MSS.written throughout in large letters] and nearly allother " Greek MSS. join in this testimony. With the ^symbol '' itV' the enumeration of the versions com- \'mences, this symbol representing the " Itala," or Old ^Latin version, while the/.' tells us that the statement ' /'here made holds good of most (plpj'isque) of its MSS.in opposition to the one cited (under the symbol fF^')on the other side. The divergent reading of the OldLatin MS., b, is then particularly stated in parentheses,and the enumeration proceeds with the citation of theVulgate Latin version (vg.), the Coptic version (cop.),both Syriac versions (syr'") and the intimation thatother versions yet (al = a/ns) might be added. Next,after a semicolon, more particular quotation is givenof peculiar readings which yet appear to make forthe insertion of eyevero, viz., " Likewise [the Old Latin


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26 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.small letters and cited as] 28. 2''*, [and one Old LatinMS. cited as] g'- [read] rjKova-Or] after ovp[avo)y]."Finally, in parentheses, the parallel passages fromMatthew and Luke are given as briefly as possible,and we find ourselves against the perpendicular linewhich tells us that we are at the end of this note.The next note concerns the reading ei/ crot, and tells

us :" v o-ot ([commended also by] Griesbach), [is readabove in accordance] with [the testimony of the follow-ing uncial manusci'ipts of the Cri-eek Testament, viz.,those cited by the symbols] {


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THE MATTER OF CRITICISM. 27also the Ebionite Gospel [as quoted in the note] atMatt. iii. 17," where, sure enough, we find a longquotation from this apocryphal book, taken fromEpiphanius.The third note is briefer, and only tells us:

" evSoKrja-a [is read above] with [the uncial MSS.]X, A, B, D*-, K, L, M, U, n, and most others, while [theuncial MSS.] W, E, F, H, Y, T, A, and very manyothers [read] rjvSoKrjaa." The difterence, it will beobserved, turns on the presence or absence of theaugment.

The reader has probably not waded through thisexplanation of these notes without learning somethingmore than the mere knack of unravelling their con-tractions and extending their implications. He haslearned, doubtless, that there are two classes of Greekmanuscripts, the one written in large letters and citedby capital letters as symbols, and the other writtenin small letters and cited by numerals as symbols.Above all else, however, he is likely to have learnedthat digests of readings are useless to those who knownothing about the things digested. He has not readeven these few notes without feeling that he mustknow something about these manuscripts and ver-sions and fathers (for it is a mere chance that nofather is quoted on Mark i. 11), if he is to deal withtheir testimony. We may assume, therefore, that heis the better prepared by a sight of the digest to gowith us in our next step, and learn something a.bout


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28 TEXTUAL CRITICJS.U.

1. Greek Manuscripts of the New Testament.The most astonishing thing about the manuscripts

of tlie New Testament is their great number : as hasalready been intimated, quite two thousand of themhave been catalogued upon the lists,a numberaltogether out of proportion to what antiquity haspreserved for other ancient books. The oldest ofthem was -\vi-itten about the middle of the fourthcentury ; the youngest after the New Testament hadbeen put into print. The products of so many ages,they differ among themselves in numerous particulars :the material on which they are written, the characterin which they are written, the divisions that havebeen introduced into the text or indicated on themargin, the punctuation they have received, and thelike. The oldest copy that has survived to our day,it will be observed, was made quite two centuries ortwo centuries and a half after the latest book of theNew Testament was given to the world. There canarise no question among them, therefore, as to theavitographs of the sacred books. However we mayaccount for it, the autographs disappeared very earlyperhaps the brittleness of the papyrus (2 John 12)on which they were written and the constant use towhich they were put, combined with the evil fortunesof a persecuted Church and a piety which knewnothing of the sacredness of relics, to destroy them

At any rate, except in a rhetorical


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THE MATTER OF CRITICISM. 29"Xlike us of to-day, forced to depend solely on the oldestand most accurate copies.

In attempting to classify this vast mass of mateiial,the first and sharpest line that is drawn concernsitself with the contents of the manuscripts, andseparates those which give a continuous textofwhatever extentfrom those that contain only theChurch lessons drawn from the New Testament. Thelatter are called " Lectionaries," and number severalhundreds, dating from the eighth to the sixteenth andeven seventeenth centuries ; they form a subordinateclass of manuscripts, which will engage our attentionat a later point. The continuous manuscripts aremuch more numerous, but differ greatly among them-selves in the extent of their contents. Only a fewcontain the whole New Testament, and some aresmall fragments that preserve only a few verses oreven words. Most of them, doubtless, never con-tained the entire New Testament, but were, whencomplete, manuscripts of one or more of the portionsinto which the bulkiness of a written copy and thecostliness of hand-made volumes caused the NewTestament to be divided in eaily times. This cu-cuni-stance leads to the apportioning of our extant manu-scripts into classes, according to the parts of the NewTestament that they contain ; and following theindications of the early custom, the New Testament isdivided, for critical purposes, into four sectionsviz.(1) the Gospels, (2) the Acts and the Catholic Epistles,


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30 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.pendently. It hence happens that when a manuscriptcontains more than one section it may be representedby different symbols in its several parts, while con-vei'sely the same symbol may i-epresent differentmanuscripts in the several sections. Thus, forexample, D in the Gospels is Codex Bezas, while D inPaul is Codex Claromontanus, a related but entii-elydifferent manuscript ; B in the Gospels is the J&reatCodex Vaticanus, the oldest and most vakiable of ourmanuscripts, while B in the Apocalypse is the lateand infei'ior Codex Vaticanus 2066 ; on the otherhand, A of the Gospels is the same codex as G inPaul ; and 13 is the same with 33 of the Gospels and17 of Paul ; and 69 of the Gospels is the same as 31 ofActs, 37 of Paul, and 14 of the Apocalypse. On theother hand, n. A, and C represent the same codicesthroughout the four parts, and 1, 3, 5, 6, etc., are thesame codices in the Gospels, Acts and Paul. Thelist for each of the four parts is redacted, in a word,in entire independence of the others, and must betreated independently. The conveniences that arisefrom this arrangement are manifold ; while very smallinconvenience results, except when we wish to speakof a manuscript in a context that gives no hint ofthe portion of the New Testament to which itbelongs. Usually it is easy to use its name in suchcases 5 when this is inconvenient, a kind of shorthandmethod of distinguishing it has been suggested, whichconsists in placing a small numeral at the bottom (not


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THE MATTER OF CRITICISM. 31the lists, the parts being counted, of course, from theGospels on. Thus, D without numeral means CodexBezte, which contains the Gospels and Acts ; and D^Codex Claromontanus, which contains the Epistles ofPaul. In like manner E means Codex Basiliensis ofthe G jspels, while E., means Codex Laudianus 35 ofthe Acts, and E. Codex Sangermanensis of Paul. Oragain, B is the ^reat Codex Yaticanus, and includes '^the Gospels, Acts, and Paul, while B^, is Codex Vati-canus 20G6, and contains the Apocalypse. Anothermethod of somewhat more clumsily securing the sameresult is to place at the top of the symbol an abbrevi-ated indication of the portion of the New Testamentin which the manuscript bears this symbol, thusI3.apoc.^ ])ovv. act.^ J) paui^ ^^^ ^^^ j^j^g^ j^q g^^^j^ distinguish-ing marks are needed in citing the manuscripts in thedirect business of textual criticism, for which purposetheir classification and symbolising were inventedthe passage that is under discussion determines thesection, and the bare symbol is sufficient to identifyeach manuscript.Another sharp division line that separates themanuscripts into gi-eat and well-marked classes con-cerns itself with the character or handwriting inwhich they are written. By this division the manu-scripts are parted into two very unequal bodies, calledrespectively " Uncial MSS." and " Minuscule (or,more impi-operly and confusingly, 'Cursive') MSS."The former includes all those manuscripts, less than


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32 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.lists and cited in the digests by the capital letters ofthe Latin, Greek, and Hebrew alphabets as symbolsA, B, C, D, etc., r, A, H, II, 2, etc., n- The latter classincludes all other manuscripts, about two thousandin number, all of which are written in a characterthat more closely resembles the small letters of ourordinarily printed Greek and hence is appropriatelycalled minuscule (or more improperly, cvirsive) ; theyare designated in the lists and cited in the digestschiefly by Arabic numerals as symbols: 1, 2, 3, 4,527, etc. The importance of this classification residesnot so much in its great formal convenience as in thefact that it separates the manuscripts according totheir age. No known uncial MS. of the continuoustext was written later than the tenth century, and noknown minuscule (cur.sive) was written earlier thanthe ninth ; so that the tenth century forms a sharpdivision line between the two classes. The introduc-tion of the minuscule hand in the ninth century is notonly proved by the earliest dated books existing inthat handviz.. Codex 481 of the Gospels, dated 7thMay, 835, the Bodleian Euclid, dated 888, and theBodleian Plato, dated 895but is oddly illustrated byCodex A of the Gospels, which comes to us from theninth century, and is written partly in uncials andpartly in minuscules. Nevertheless, few specimensof the minuscule hand of the ninth century existamong manuscripts of the Greek Testament. In thetenth century they become numerous, and in theeleventh they have entirely displaced uncial codices


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TILE MATTER OF CRITICISM. 33tinuance of the uncial hand in use for the lectionariesthrough the eleventh century, of which age evenimportant dated copies exist. By this classilicationthere are thus set apart from one another the few,old, uncial copies, and the many, late, minuscule copies,and a separate set of symbols assigned to each. Evenin the brief digests Ave may see these two bodies ofcodices marshalled in separate regiments, as it were,and are enabled to estimate them accordingly at aglance.The chronological eflect of classifying codices l)y

the handwriting employed in them is due to thefact that handwriting, like language and all elsehuman, is subject to gradual change aiul undergoeshistoi'ical development, so that its stages of growtlimark progressive epochs. In the development ofthe Greek book-hand three strongly marked stagesare to be distinguished,the stages of Capitals,Uncials, and Minuscules. But contemporary withthese book-hands there was also in use, runningin parallel development, a current or cursive handfor the more familiar and rapidly written documentsof business or private life. And it was this cursivehand that became the real parent of each newbook-hand, so that from the cursive capitals grew upthe uncial book-hand, and from the cursive uncialsthe minuscule book-hand. The development wasalways, thus, the resultant of the co-working of twoforces, one pushing towards ease in writing, the other


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34 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.writing seems to have been cliange in the materialon which the writing was wrought. The lapidarycapitals, the angular shapes of which were peculiarlysuitable to the art of stone-cutting, became graceful,light, curved uncials when written with a pointedI'eed on the friable substance of the papyrus-paper,which constituted the usual material of books in thecenturies immediately preceding and following thecommencement of our era. These semi-cursive, rapidand light lines were no sooner transferred to thehard, smooth surface of vellum than they acquiredthe firmness and regularity which makes the book-hand of our earliest vellum manuscripts (about thefourth century a.d.) the most beautiful known;although it began to degenerate almost as soon asformed, under the temptation which the smooth surfaceoffered to broaden and coarsen the strokes. Once more,so soon as the uncial cursive of common life wastransferred from the papyrus of business writings to thevellum of books, it acquired firmness and regularity,and became the beautiful minuscule of the ninth andtenth centuries,only, however, to enter in its tvirn ona long course of gradual change and debasement. NoGreek writing has come down to us in capitals ; theyare confined in extant books to titles, supersci'iptions,and the like. Tlie earliest extant remains of Greekliteratui-e and of Gieek pi-ivate writing alike (secondcentury b.c.) present us with truly uncial writing,but with an uncial which is as yet so largely cursive


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THE MATTER OF CRITICISM. 35the gradual changes which they undergo, the coarsen-ing that came in in the sixth century, the oblongand oval shapes that were introduced together with asloping writing in the seventh century, and the like,are among the most trustwortliy guides of thepakeographer in determining the age of a manuscript.In like manner the growth of tlie minuscule hand isti-aceable through four marked and many less strikingchanges that furnish landmarks to the student. Thedetails must be left to works on palaeography ; and itwill suffice for us to have indicated them thus briefly,while we insist only on the broad distinction betweenthe uncials aiid minuscules as great classes,theformer embracing, in general, the Biblical manu-scripts written from the fourth to the tenth century,and the latter those written from the tenth centuryuntil the printing-press put a stop to hand-copyingaltogether.As has been already hinted, the very material on

which a manuscript is written may become of import-ance as a criterion of its age. It is perhaps certainthat the New Testament autographs were writtenon the paper made from the Egyptian papyrus (cf.2 John 12), which appears to have been the ordinaryliterary vehicle of the time. This paper could bemanufactured in small sheets only, which were gluedtogether at the side edges into long ribbons, thusforming rolls, and then written upon with a reed penin short columns running across the roll, a column to


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36 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.thus a long succession of short, narrow cokimns, con-e-sponding to our pages, would pass before the eye ofthe reader in a not inconvenient arrangement. Thispapyrus-book seems to have been in use prettyuniversally during the first ages of the Christian era,and papyrus continued to be used by Greek scribesas a "writing material as late as the ninth century.No very early papyrus manuscripts of the NewTestament have come down to us ; some meagre frag-ments of the fifth century containing a few wordsfrom 1 Corinthians (cited as Q), and a seventh (?)century fragment of Luke's Gospel, possibly from alectionary, brought to light by Wesse/ly in 1882,are about all that we have as yet knowledge of,although it is understood that there are more amongthe Fayum papyii at Vienna. The columnararrangement of our oldest New Testament manu-scripts on vellum appears to be a reminiscence of theappearance of an open papyrus roll and a witness toa desire to retain on vellum the familiar appeai-anceof a many-columned sheet of papyrus. Codex n hasfour columns to each page, so that at every openingit offers a view of eight narrow parallel columns.Codex B has three columns to a page, and severalmanuscripts have two. "When vellum took the place ofpapyrus as a literary vehicle, the stiflness of the newmaterial, which lent itself ill to rolling, necessitateda change in the form of the book, which now becamea " codex," or, in other words, assumed the form of


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THE MATTER OF CRITICISM. 37the whole. Cotton paper made its appearance in theWestern world in the eiffhth century ; the first speci- ^^- /T^men of a New Testament manuscript written on it is alectionary of the ninth century. It did not, however,become a serious rival of parchment until it wasitself largely displaced by I'ag or linen paper, whichwas introduced in perhaps the twelfth centui-y, andcame into general use in the fourteenth, althoughparchment was never entirely displaced until afterthe invention of printing. Occasionally {e.g. CodexLeicestrensis) parchment and paper both enter intothe composition of a book.

Thi'oughout the whole history of vellum books thepractice more or less prevailed of supplying parch-ment for new books by washing out the writingfrom old sheets, which were thus made available forrenewed use. So destructive of literary monumentsdid this occasionally become that it was necessaryat the end of the seventh century, for instance, toforbid the destruction of perfect manuscripts ofthe Scriptures or the Fatliers by a synodal decree.The passage of time brings out again, perhaps by achemical action of the atmosphei'O, though often veryfaintly, the lines of the older writing in such twice-written codicesunless, indeed, the erasiire was per-foi'med bv some such perfect method as rubbing downtlie softened surface of the vellum itself witli pumice-stone. Such codices are called " codices rescripti," or" palimpsests," and some of our most valuable texts,


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38 TEXTUAL CBJTJCI^M.works of Ephrem the Syrian, is a palimpsest of afifth-century New Testament (cited as C). So alsoCodex Z at Dublin consists of some very valuablesixth-century fragments of Matthew peeping out frombeneath some patristic writings. !'' H, R, W^' *= ^- areother New Testament examples. The deciphering ofsuch erased writing is a difficult and painful task,even with the assistance of chemical mixtures forbringing out the faint lines.

The difficulty of consulting a manuscript NewTestament in the earliest ages was lai-gely increased bythe total lack of all those aids to the eye which laterediting has gradually invented, and introduced intoor attached to the text. The earliest manuscripts,and no doubt the autographs, were written evenwithout divisions between the words. The unbrokensuccession of letters ran from the beginning to theend of each line, and the division of these letters intowords, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs, was left tothe good sense of each individual reader. Eachbook of the New Testament, by this arrangement,stood as a single word, and, at each opening of thepapyrus roll or vellum codex, a series of solid columnsalone confronted the eye. The difficulty which anuntrained eye would iiiid in i-eading such a text mustnot be taken as a standai-d for the I'eaders of thatday, but it is obvioiis that reading was a severertask under such circumstances than it is now.Let the student exercise himself in dividing into

the


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THE MATTER OF CBITICISM. 39APXHToyeYi^rreAiOYlYXYYioyOYKAecocrerPAnTMeNTCOHCcMATO)TTpo4)HTHiAoYAnocTeAAU)TONArreAONMOYnponpocconoycoYOCK&TACKeYACeiTHNOAdC0y4>^NHB0(x)NT0C

We have no means of discovering when editorialcai-e began to be expended in inventing helps to easyreading and introducing them into these unbrokencolumns. No existing manuscript is wholly withoutsuch helps, although the oldest have them rarelyand fitfully. Even our oldest manuscript, CodexVaticanus (B), which comes to us from the early fourthcentury, occasionally marks a break in the sense bya point at the height of the top of the letter or bya little blank space, and begins a new paragraph nowand then by allowing the first letter of the line toproject a little beyond the edge of the column. Butit has no cnpital letters, no divisions between thewoi-ds, no fui'ther punctuation, no breathings, noaccents. Our next oldest manuscript. Codex Sinaiti-cns (x), which also is as old as the fourth century,allows the letter that begins tho new paragraph tostand entirely outside the column, and, like B, has asingle point irregularly for punctuation ; but it, too,lacks all breathings, accents, further punctuation,and divisions between words. In Codex Alexandrinus


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40 TEXTUAL CniTTCISM.montanus (Dj), of the sixth century, although thetext is continuous, the words are divided in theinscriptions and subscriptions of the several books.Breathings and accents do not occur until later ; thelatter probably not until the eighth century. Thusgradually the text took upon itself more and more ofthe helps to easy reading which are now in universaluse, until the later minuscules were furnished almostas fully as modern printed copies.The most interesting attempt of early times to

provide a handy edition of the New Testament,account of which has come down to us, was thatmade by Euthalius, a deacon of Alexandria, whopublished an edition of the Epistles of Paul inA.D. 458, and, shortly afterwards, a similar editionof the Acts and Catholic Epistles. His editionsfurnished a complete system of prologues, prefaces,lists of quotations sacred and profane found in thebooks, and catalogues of chapters and ecclesiasticallections. In addition to this, the lections andchapters were marked in the margin of the textitself, where also every fiftieth line (oi- ctti^os) wasindicated by its appropriate numeral. Whether healso In-oke up the text into short lines of variedlength designed to aid in public reading each line(called "colon " or " comma ") forming a sense-clauseis more doubtful, biit appears possible. At allevents, it is important that we do not confuse the(TTLxoL, which Euthalius certainly accurately counted

coramata with which


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THE MATTER OF CRITICISM. 41unit of measurement for the work done by thecompositor, so in ancient times the orixo? was aline of set lenfjth, according to the number of whicliincluded in any Avriting, in whatever line-lengths itwas actually written, the length of the book wasestimated and the pay of the scribe calculated.The actvial length of the standard Greek o-ti;(osappears to have been that of the average hexameterline ; and it is apparent at once that accurately toestimate these and mark every fiftieth one on themargin of New Testament MSS. presented a meansof referring to each passage which would be in-dependent of the form of the particular manuscript.The name crrt;)(o? was often applied also to the commaor colon, which difiered from the cttixo?, technicallyso called, not only in having to do with the sense, butalso in being of varied length. It was to the writingsof the orators and other books much used in publicreading that the colon-writing was first applied.Thence it was taken over into the poetical books of theOld Testament, and Jerome proposed to introduce itinto the prophets. Whether Euthulins inti'oduced itinto the New Testament or adopted it into his editionof the New Testament books or not, it first appears inextant New Testament codices not long after his time.The great examples of it are Codex Beza? (D) ofthe Gospels and Acts, and its companion, CodexClaromontanus (Dj) of the Pauline Epistles, as wellas H3 of Paul. As these clause-lines varied much


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42 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.by a point, and fclio niannscript written solidly. Sucha manuscript is K of the Gospels.

Euthalius is not to be accounted the inventor ofthe lessons or the chapters which he marked in hiseditions. He nowhere claims to be theii' author, andhe records two separate schemes of chapter-division inthe Acts. When the New Testament was first dividedinto chapters wc have no data for determining.Clement of Alexandria already speaks of pericopes,Tertullian of capitula, and Dionysius of Alexandriaof Kee^aAfta. Our oldest manuscripts already bearthem on their margins, and have inherited themfrom a past older than themselves. For example, thechapters in Codex Vaticanus (B) for Paul's Epistlesare numbered consecutively throughout the book,and although Hebrews stands immediately after2 Thessalonians in the Codex, the numei'als attachedto the chapters prove that they were adopted froma manuscript in which Hebrews stood next afterGalatians. Again, this same Codex (B) presents twoseparate systems of chaptei'S for Paul and the Actsand Catholic Epistles alike, which could scarcely beunless l)oth had been older than it. The most ini-poi-tant of the chapter-divisions in the Gospels is thatwhich apparently beca,me the commonly accepted one(found in A, C, N, B, Z, etc.), and which is called theTiVA.01 from the circumstance that the " titles " ofthese chapters are gathered into tables at the begin-ning of each Gospel or written at the top or foot of


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THE MATTER OF CRITICISM. 43woes under the name of the Ensebian (or Ammonian)sections and Eusebian canons, the object of whichappears to have been harmonistic. Each Gospel wasdivided into shorter or longer numbered sections355 in Matthew, 233 in Mark, 342 in Luke, and 232in John. Then ten tables or lists were formed called"canons," the first of which contained all the passagescommon to all four Gospels ; the second, third andfourth those common to any given three ; the fifthto the ninth inclusive those common to any two, andthe tenth those peculiar to one. By attaching to thenumber of each section in the margin of the text thenumber of the list or " canon '' to which it belonged,a veiy complete harmonistic system, or at least systemof reference to pai'allel passages, resulted. Thus,

^ T 1 on V. PA0 131)opposite John xv. JU was written or ., whence we learn thnt this is the 139th section ofJohn, and belongs to the third canon ; on turning tothe canons, the thii'd is found to contain passagescommon to John, Matthew, and Luke, and in it,opposite John 139 we find Matthew 90 and Jjuke 58.It is easy to turn to these sections in tlie text andread the parallel passages to John 139. Codex A ofthe fifth century is the oldest codex that preservesthis system complete. C, D, and many others, havethe sections, but not the canons. Sometimes theharmonistic information is entered on the margin ofeach page. No codex which has any part of this


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44 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.however, it became the custom to mark the begin-ning and end of each in the margin of continuouscopies of the Greek Testament, which were thusI'edacted for use in public service. This was one ofthe excellences of Euthalius' editions. The earliestMS. which possesses a table of the lessons prefixed tothe text is probably Codex Cvpinus (K), of the ninthcentury ; and the arrangement of such tables for Actsand the Epistles is apparently claimed to himself byEuthalius. Many Greek MSS. after the eighth andninth centuries mai'k the beginning of the lectionswith the word apxrj or ^ or ap, and the end withthe word TiXo


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THE MATTER OF CHITICIS21. 45student with the unauthoritative charactei' of themall. Least of all can the ordinary divisions of ourmodern Bibles into chapters and verses be permittedto affect our free treatment of the text. No one ofthe ancient divisions found in the manuscriptspassed over into modern Bibles, Our chapters wereinvented apparently by Stephen Langton (f"1228),and were first applied to the Latin Vulgate, onlythence finding their way gradually into the printedGreek Testament. Our verses were made by RobertStephen '' inter equitandum," on a journey from Paristo Geneva, and Avere first introduced into the GreekTestament published l>y him in 1551. The insjjiredtext consists of the simple succession of lettei's, andmust be separated into words and sections and para-graphs by each scholar for himself.No attempt was made to give to the earlier MSS.

any further beauty than that which resulted from theuse of the best materials and the exquisitely neat andregular writing. The vellum of Codex Sinaiticus(n*) is made from the finest antelope skin, and thatof B, A, Do, N is not unworthy of comparison withit ; while the regularity and beauty of the hand inwhich these manuscripts are written challenge theadmiration of all beholders. Ornamental capitals andcolophons Avere, hoAveA^er, soon introduced, and redink was used for variety in them as Avell as in variousrubrics and the like. The most sumptuous of theearly manusciipts are the " purple manuscripts,"


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4G TEXTUAL CRITICISM.external splendour than inner excellence. Several oftlie most valuable codices of the Old Latin version(as, e.g., those cited as b, f, e, i), as well as thefamous Codex Argenteus of the Gothic version, belongto this class. The purple MSS. of the Greek Testa-ment come mainly fi'om the sixth century : such areN, 2, $. Of these 2 (Codex E,ossanen.sis) is especiallynoteworthy, inasmuch as it is adorned also witha collection of miniatures, and is the earliest NewTestament manuscript so ornamented, and sharesthis honour with only one other Biblical manuscript,a purple codex of Genesis at Vienna. The art ofdyeing MSS. was i-evived under Charlemagne and hissuccessors, giving us a series of minuscule purplesof the ninth and tenth centuries, such as the St.Petersburg codex, lately published by Belsheim, andthe second purple codex dis:covered at Berat by theAbbe Batiffol.With these preliminaiies, we may proceed next to

catalogue the Uncial Manuscripts that have comedown to us. There have, at the present writing, beenplaced on the lists some eighty-nine of them all told,which are cited by the following symbols :

N A B B^''"" C D*^"^- ^"'- D^''"' E E^'''- E^'^^ F F^''"^V G CV^^^- [G*"^"' = A] G''- 11 H^^^^- H^'^"'J^l.L'.X4.S.(i.7. Jl) T^ T/"Cath. Paul T JjAct. Calh. Paul

M M^""' N N''- N^^"' O O^'^'^'* '^'^'^' O^'*"'Qb. Paul p pAct. Calh. Paul. Apoc. Q Ql'a"l JJ, B^''"''pb.c.d.e.f. rpwoi ^a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.


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THE MATTER OF ClUTICTSM. 47To these should be added another inchiding somewords from 1 Tim. vi. 2 and iii. 15, 16, described byZahn in his Furscliungen zur Geschiclite des N.T.Kanons, Theil iii., p. 277, bringing the total up to 90.

These manuscripts are distributed among the varioussections of the New Testament as follows :

Uncial MSS. of the Gospels :N A B D E F F-^ a H V-^'-^- V K L M N N^

Qa.b.c.d.eXg.k.p Q li S T T^-cd.e.f.*j;woi JJ y^/..(!a- ^Ya.b.c.d.o.f.g.h.I.X YZ r A 0;'-b-c.d.e.f.g.li. _^ ^ n "^2 4> = G7. V^'XIIL

Uncial MSS. of the Acts and CatJiolic Epistles :X A B C D E_, F^^ Go G*' H.-, V-^-^- K,, L, V,= 16, ^9' -

of which K does not contain tlie Acts, andonly N A B C K2 Lg Po contain the CatholicEpistles.

Uncial MSS. of Paul's Epistles :N A B C D2 E3 F2 F^ G, II3 I- K2 L2 M2 N2 O2 r-j^

-f-^ . 0^0 P, Qo ^2 = 20, to Avhich Zahn's Codex "is to be added, maki>ig 21.

Uncial MSS. of the Apocalj^se :N A B, C Ps = 5.

They are distributed according to the centuries inwhich they were written as follows :

Uncial MSS. of the fourth century :N B = 2.


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48 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.Uncial MSS. of the sixth century :D Djj E., H3 V^ N N'* Oo 2 O'^ P R T" T=^- Z

Qccf.g. -^ |-^ ^^^^ Zahn's Codex X] = 24.Uncial MSS. of the seventh century:Uncial MSS. of tlie eighth century :

B2 E L W^^*^ Y G3 H. K K,, L^ M M, N2 0^*-^- Pg

rpf V W'='i'=-^e'^- X f A A II = 31.Uncial MSS. of tlie tenth century :G H Qi^ S U 0" = G.

Very many of these MSS. are the merest frag-ments. X alone contains the whole New Testament.B contains the whole up to the middle of Hebrews,and thence lacks pait of Hebrews, the PastoralEpistles, Philemon, and the Apocalypse. A containsall but a few chapters. C contains fragments ofnearly every book. On the other hand, many manu-scripts have received such marginal or other correctionby the first or later hands as to give us practicallymanuscripts within manuscripts. These various handsare usually quoted by numerals, lettei-s, or asterisksplaced at the top of the letter symbolising the MS.,though these must not be confounded with thecompound symbols given in the list above (suchas I^'^'^' I^ N^ Qa.b.c. etc.), which represent separate


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THE MATTER OF CHITWISM. 49the top of the symbol besides those enumerated inthe lists above, represent different hands which havebeen correcting the manuscript designated by thesymbol. Thus D* D** D***, or D*D2 D", orD* D'' J)" Avould be three ways (all of which are inuse) of designating D as oi'iginally written (D")' ^^^^the corrections of the second (D**, D^, or 1)^) andthird (D***, D^, or T>^) hands. If no hand hascorrected the reading the manuscript is cited simplyas D ; where it is cited as D*, this advertises to usthat a correction may be looked for elsewhere in thedigest. The correctors of our oldest manviscripts,such as B, X, C, are of importance. B^ is of thefourth century ; B^ of the tentli or eleventh ; C^ ofthe .sixth ; and C^ of the ninth, n has been cor-rected by very many hands, which are cited byTischendorf by the following system : n^ is of thefourth century ; {


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50 TEXTUAL CRTTICTSM.It would be of interest to aikl here a brief techiiic;il

description of each of the MSS. named by symbolabove. The beginner may, however, dispense for thetime with matter of this sort ; and when he feelsthe need of it, it is better for him to seek it whereit can be found in full. The best source of suchinformation is the Prolegomena to Tischendorf 's eighthedition, which have been prepared by Dr. CasparRene Gregory, and published by Hinrichs (in Latin)at Leipzig. The most comprehensive treatise of thesort in English is Dr. Scrivener's " Plain Intro-duction to the Criticism of the New Testament,"third edition (Cambridge : Deighton, Bell, & Co.,1883), in connection with which mi;st be used thelittle pamphlet, called "Notes on Scrivener's 'PlainIntroduction, etc' " chiefly from the memoranda ofthe late Professor Ezra Abbot, and published by Dr.Thayer (London : Ward, Lock, Ar Co.). It will besuflicient here to give a compressed list of the uncialmanuscripts.

(1) Uncial 2fSS. of the Gospels.X. Sinaiticus, nunc Petropolitanus. Stec. IV. Con-

tains the whole New Testament.A. Alexandrinus Londinensis. Srec. V. Contains the

whole New Testament, except Matthew i. 1 toXXV. G ; John vi. 50 to viii. 52 ; and 2 Coi-inthiansiv. 13 to xii. 7.

B. Vaticanus Roma3. Srec. lY. Contains the wholeNew Testament, except Hebrews ix. 14 to


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THE MATTER OF CBJTICIHM. 51C. Ephraemi Syri rescriptus Parisiensis. Ssec. \

Contains fragments of all the books, except2 Thessalonians and 2 John.

D. BezEe Cantabrigiensis. Saec. YI. Contains theGospels and Acts, with some small lacunpe.

E. Basiliensis. Stec. YIII. Contains the Gospels withlacunte.

F. Boreeli Rheno-Traiectinus, Soec. IX. Contains theGospels with lacuna?.

F''. Margo Octateuchi Coisliniani Parisiensis. Sa^c.VII. Contains fragments of the Gospels, Acts,and Pauline Epistles.

G. Seidelii Londinensis. Sajc. IX. or X. Containsthe Gospels with lacunje.

H. iSeidehi Hamburgensis. Srec. IX. or X. Containsthe Gospels with lacun.ie.II.3-1.7.. Petropolitani rescripti. ScTC. V., Y., VI., VI.

Contain fragments of the Gospels.I''. Londinensis rescriptus. Sa?c. V. Contains a frag-

ment of John.K. Cyprius Parisiensis. Sa^c. IX. Contains the whole

of the Gospels.L. Regius Parisiensis. Sa^c. A^IIT. Contains the

Gospels with lacuna\M. Campianus Parisiensis. S.ipc. IX. Contains the

whole of the Gospels.N. Purpnreus. Stvc. VI. Contains fragments of the

Gospels.N". Cairensis. So^c. VI. Contains fragments of


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52 TEXTUAL CPJTICISM.Qa.b.c.d.e.f.g. (luelferbytfiiuis, Bodleianus, Veronensis,

Turicensis, Sangullensis, Moscueusis, Parisiensis.Sjec. IX., X., VI., VII., IX., IX., IX. Containthe hymns of Lnke i. and ii,

P. Guelferbvtanns rescriptns. iSav. VI. Containsfragments of the Gospels.

Q. Guelferbytanns rescriptns. Sa^c. V. Contains frag-ments of Lnke and John.

R. Nitriensis, nunc Londinensis, rescriptns. Sa^c. VI.Contains fragments of Luke.

S. Vaticanus Roma^. Sa^c. X. Contains the Gospels.T, Borgianus Rom;e. Sa^c. V. Contains fragments of

Luke and John.-pii.c.d.c.f. Peti-opolitanus, Porfirianus Chiovensis, Bor-

gianus Bomre, Cantabrigiensis, Mellsiaj Ilorneri.Sajc. VI., VI., VII., VL, IX. Contain smallfragments of the Gospels.

'j-'Hoi. "VVoidii. Sa^c. V. Contains fragments of Lukeand John.

U. Marcianus Venetus. Sa^c. IX. or X. Containsthe Gospels.

V. Moscuensis. Sa'c. IX. Contains the Gospels upto John vii. 39, with some lacuna?.

\Ya.b.c.d.e,f.g.ii. Parisiensis, Neapolitanus Borbonicus,Sangallensis, Cantabrigiensis, Oxonien?is etAtho., Uxoniensis, Londinensis, Oxoniensis. Sa^e.VIII., VIII., IX., IX., IX., IX., IX., IX.Contain fragments of the (lOspels.X. Monacensis. Sa-c. IX. or X. Contains fragmentsof the Gospels.


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THE MATTER OF CRITICISM. hoZ. Dublinensis rescriptus. Sicc. YI. Contains frag-

ments of Matthew.r. Tischendorfianus IV. .Sa'C. IX. or X. Contains

the Gospels with lucunc'e.A. Sangallensis. Sa'c. IX. or X. Contains the

Gospels, except John xix. 1735."*. Tischendorfianus Lipsiensis. Sa-c. YII. Contains

a fragment of Matthew.(H)b.c.d.c.f.g,ii. Petropolitani et Porfiriani Chiovenses.

Sa'C. VII., VI.. VII. or VIII., VI., VI., VI.,IX. or X. Contain fragments of the Gospels.

A. Tischendorfianus III. Oxoniensis. 8a'C. IX. Con-tams Luke and John.

H. Zacynthius Londinensis. Stec. VIII. Containsfragments of Luke.n. Petropolitanus. S;l'C-. IX. Contains the Gospelswith lacunar

2. Hossanensis Purpureus. Sa'C. VI. ContainsMatthew and Mark, except Mark xvi. 14 20.

4>. Beratinus Purpureus. Sa^c. VI (?). Cont;iins theGospels of Matthew and Mark with lacun;e.

(2) Uncial AISS. of the Acts and Catholic Epistles.X A B C D. See under these same symbols for the

Gospels.E. Laudianus Oxoniensis. S;uc. VI. Contains Acts

with lacume.F*^. See under the same symbol for the Gospels.G. Petropolitanus. Siec. VII. Contains a fragment


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64 TEXTUAL CRITICISM.H. Mutinensis. Siiec. IX. Contains Acts with laciinie.I-'''. Petropolitani rescripti. Sa^c. V., VII., VII,

Contain fragments of Acts.K. Moscuensis. Sa!C. IX. Contains Catholic Epistlesand Pauline Epistles, with lacunas in the lattei-.

L. Angelicus Iloma\ S;i;c. IX. Acts with lacunas,Catholic Epistles entire, and Paul's Epistles upto Hebrews xiii. 10.

P. Porfirianus Chiovensis. Sa^c. IX. Contains Acts,Catholic Epistles, Paul's Epistles, and the Apoca-lypse, with lacunae.

(3) Uncial MSS. of the, Ejnstles of Paul.

^5 A B C. See under the same symbols of the Crospels.D. Claromontanus Parisiensis. Sa?c. VI. Containsthe Epistles of Paul.

E. Sangermanensis, nunc Petropolitanus. iSiec. IX.Contains Paul with lacunse.

F. Augiensis Cantabrigiensis. Sa;c. IX. ContainsPaul with lacun;y, except Hebrews.

F". iSee under this symbol in the Gospels.G. Bfcrnei'innus Dresdensis. Sasc. IX. Contains

Paul with lacunie, except Hebrews.II. Parisiensis, Moscuensis, et al. Siec. VI. Contains

fragments of Paul.1^. Petropolitanus. Saec. V. Contains fragments of

1 Corinthians and Titus.K. See under this symbol of Acts and Catholic


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THE MATTER OF CIUTICISM. 55M. Londinensis e

an introduction to the textual criticism of the new testament (b. b. warfield, 1887)b. b. warfield...

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