Chapter II · MATERIALS OF THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. (continued 3)

MSS. used by Jerome.

The principles on which Jerome went in his revision of the text have been already referred to, but what the early Greek manuscripts were that he employed is not yet clearly made out. The relics of the material he used are as scanty as those of his own work. He must, however, have been able to make use of manuscripts that went back to Eusebius, seeing that he adopted the Eusebian Canons in his New Testament. But there are certain readings in Jerome which we have not yet been able to discover in any Greek manuscript that we know. For instance, he gives docebit vos omnem veritatem in John xvi. 13, where our present Greek editions read ὁδηγήσει ὑμᾶς ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ πάσῃ, so that he would seem to have read διηγήσεται ὑμῖν τὴν ἀλήθειαν πᾶσαν. As a matter of fact, this reading does occur in two passages of Eusebius and in Cyril of Jerusalem, as well as in the Arabic version of Tatian, but it has not been discovered in any Greek manuscript.^[104] In the other parts of the New Testament, the revision of which was perhaps completed by the year 386, Jerome inserted hardly any new readings from the Greek, but contented himself with improving the grammar and diction of the Latin. His work on the Old Testament was much more comprehensive, but does not fall to be discussed here.

History of the Vulgate.

It was only by degrees that Jerome’s recension gained 125ground. In Rome, Gregory the Great (d. 604) for one preferred it to the old, though at the same time he says expressly: sedes apostolica, cui auctore Deo praesideo, utraque utitur. |Alcuin.| Owing to the use of both forms the diversity of copies grew to such an extent that in 797 Charles the Great ordered Alcuin to make a uniformly revised text from the best Latin manuscripts for use in the Churches of his Empire. For this purpose Alcuin sent to his native Northumbria for manuscripts, by which he corrected the text of the Bible, and he was able to present the first copy to the Emperor at Christmas 801. A good many of the superb Carolingian manuscripts, as they are called, which are found in our libraries, contain Alcuin’s Revision, as for instance the Bible of Grandval near Basel, which was probably written for Charles the Bald, and which is now in the British Museum (see Plate VII.); the Bible presented to the same monarch by Vivian, Abbot of St. Martin of Tours, which was sent by the Chapter of Metz from the Cathedral treasury there to Colbert in 1675, and is now in Paris (B. N., Lat. 1); another written in the same monastery of St. Martin, and now at Bamberg; and that in the Vallicellian Library of the Church of Sta. Maria in Rome, which is perhaps the best specimen of the Alcuinian Bible.

Theodulf.

Another revision was introduced into France by Alcuin’s contemporary Theodulf, Bishop of Orleans (787-821). He was a Visigoth, born in the neighbourhood of Narbonne, and the type of text he introduced was taken essentially from Spanish manuscripts. We have his revision in the so-called Theodulfian Bible, which formerly belonged to the Cathedral Church of Orleans, and is now in Paris (Lat. 9380); in its companion volume, formerly in the Cathedral of Puy, and now in the British Museum (24142); and in the Bible of St. Hubert, which came from the monastery of that name in the Ardennes.

Harding.

A further revision was made by Stephen Harding, third Abbot of Citeaux. About the year 1109 he prepared a 126standard Bible for his congregation, in which the Latin text of the New Testament was corrected by the Greek. At the same time the Old Testament was revised from the Hebrew with the help of some Jewish scholars. Harding’s copy of the standard Bible, in four volumes, is still preserved in the Public Library at Dijon. A similar work was done for his monastery by William, Abbot of Hirsau.

Correctoria.

Attempts were also made to settle the text by means of the so-called Correctoria Bibliorum, in which those readings which were supposed to be correct were carefully collected and arranged. The University of Paris in particular did a great deal in this way, and such was its influence, that by the middle of the fifteenth century the Parisian text was the one most commonly followed in manuscripts, and the invention of printing gave it a complete ascendancy over the others.

Printed text.

The first fruits of the printing press are understood to be the undated “forty-two line Bible,” usually called the Mazarin Bible, seeing that it was the copy in the library of Cardinal Mazarin that first attracted the attention of bibliographers. The first dated Bible is of the year 1462. Copinger estimates that 124 editions were printed before the close of the fifteenth century, and over 400 during the sixteenth. The first edition in octavo, “for the poor man,” was issued at Basel in 1491 from the Press of Froben, the same printer who prompted Erasmus to prepare the first Greek New Testament. The first edition in Latin with various readings was printed in 1504. In the following year Erasmus published the Annotationes which Laurentius Valla had prepared for the Latin Bible as early as 1444. The year 1528 saw the first really critical edition. It was brought out by Stephen, who used in its preparation three good Paris manuscripts—the Bible of Charles the Bald already referred to, that of St. Denis, and another of the ninth century, the New Testament portion of which has now disappeared. He afterwards published in 1538-40 another 127edition, for which he employed seventeen manuscripts, and which became the foundation of the present authorised Vulgate. |Henten.| About the same time John Henten published a very valuable edition [1547] on the basis of thirty-one manuscripts, in the preparation of which he was assisted by the theologians of Louvain. This was followed in 1573 and 1580 by two further editions containing important annotations by Lucas of Brügge. |Authorised Vulgate.| In the year previous to that in which Henten’s edition appeared, the Council of Trent, in its fourth sitting of the 8th April 1546, decided “ut haec vetus et vulgata editio in publicis lectionibus, disputationibus, praedicationibus et expositionibus pro authentica habeatur,” and at the same time ordained “posthac sacra scriptura, potissimum vero haec ipsa vetus et vulgata editio quam emendatissime imprimatur.”

Sixtine.

The latter part of this decree was carried into effect in the papacy of Sixtus V. His predecessor, Pius V., began the work of revising the text of the Bible, and a “Congregatio pro emendatione Bibliorum” gave twenty-six sittings to it in the year 1569. His successor seems to have allowed the work to lapse, but Sixtus V. appointed a new commission for the purpose under the Presidency of Cardinal Caraffa. The Pope himself revised the result of their labours, which was printed at the Vatican Press that he had founded. This edition, which takes its name from him, was issued under the Bull “Aeternus ille” of the 1st March 1589, and published in the following year. It is the first official edition of the Vulgate. Sixtus died on the 27th August 1590, and was succeeded by four Popes in the space of two years. |Clementine.| His fourth successor in the Chair of Peter, Clement VIII., issued a new edition under the name of the old Pope, accompanied by the Bull “Cum sacrorum” of the 9th November 1592. This edition, containing a preface written by Cardinal Bellarmin, was substituted for the former, and has continued from that day without any alteration as the authorised Bible of the entire Roman 128Church. The text of this second edition approximated more closely to that of Henten, for which the Commission of Pope Sixtus had also expressed their preference, though their printed edition went rather by that of Stephen. The number of the variations between these two editions has been estimated at 3000. For our purpose both alike are superseded by the edition of Wordsworth and White. It may be added that the first edition to contain the names of both the Popes upon the title page is that of 1604. The title runs: “Sixti V. Pont. Max. iussu recognita et Clementis VIII. auctoritate edita.” Those printed at Rome at the present day are entitled: “Sixti V. et Clementis VIII. Pontt. Maxx. iussu recognita atque edita.” See below, p. 132.

An enumeration of all the manuscripts of the Vulgate mentioned by Tischendorf in his eighth edition, or even of the earliest and most important of them, cannot be attempted. Those, however, mentioned by Gebhardt in his Adnotatio Critica are given here, with the notation adopted by Wordsworth and White.

The best manuscripts, in the judgment of the English editors, are Codex Amiatinus, Codex Fuldensis, and the one in the Ambrosian Library at Milan (C 39 inf.), written in the sixth century. (M in W.-W.; not cited by Tischendorf.)

am. Amiatinus (vide supra, p. 122), written ca. 700, is an excellent manuscript, and particularly interesting as containing in the introduction a double catalogue of the Books of the Bible resembling that of the Senator Cassiodorus. See Westcott, Bible in the Church, Appendix B; Canon, Appendix D. (A in W.-W.) (See Plate VI.)

bodl. Bodleianus, of the seventh century, formerly belonging to the Library of St. Augustine at Canterbury. (O in W.-W.)

demid. Demidovianus, belonging to the thirteenth century, but copied from an earlier exemplar; formerly at Lyons; present locality unknown; not cited in W.-W.

129em. Emeram, written in the year 870, in gold uncials with splendid miniatures: at Munich, Cimelie 55: not cited in W.-W.

erl. Erlangen, of the ninth century (Irmischer’s Catalogue, 467): used only indirectly by Tischendorf, and not cited in W.-W.

for. Foroiuliensis, written in the sixth or seventh century, and now at Cividale, Friuli: fragments of it at Venice and Prague. (J in W.-W.)

fos. Of the ninth century: from St. Maur des Fossés, now in Paris. (Lat. 11959.)

fu. Fuldensis (vide supra, p. 122), written between 540 and 546: contains the Epistle to the Laodicaeans after Colossians: edited with facsimiles by E. Ranke. (F in W.-W.)

gat. Gatianus, from St. Gatien’s in Tours: written in the eighth or ninth century: stolen from Libri: purchased by Lord Ashburnham and now in Paris: not cited in W.-W.

harl. Harleianus 1775, of the sixth or seventh century: in the British Museum, formerly in Paris 4582: stolen from there by John Aymont in 1707. (Z in W.-W.)

ing. Ingolstadt, of the seventh century, now in the University Library at Munich: defective. (I in W.-W.) See von Dobschütz, Vulgatastudien (with two facsimiles).

mm. Of the tenth or eleventh century, from Marmoutiers, near Tours: in the British Museum, Egerton 609. (E in W.-W.)

mt. Of the eighth or ninth century, from St. Martin’s, and still at Tours: written in gold letters. (M̅, in W.-W.)

pe. A very old purple manuscript of the sixth century at Perugia, containing Luke i. 1-xii. 7. (P in W.-W.)

prag. The fragments cited under for. (see above).

reg. Regius, of the seventh or eighth century, a purple manuscript inscribed in gold, containing Matthew and Mark, with lacunæ: at Paris 11955: not cited in W.-W.

rus. The so-called Rushworth Gospels, written by an Irish 130scribe who died in the year 820: has an interlinear Anglo-Saxon version. (R in W.-W.)

san. At St. Gall, a fragment containing Matthew vi. 21-John xvii. 18, written by a scribe who says that he used two Latin and one Greek manuscripts. In the Epistles san. is a palimpsest at St. Gall containing Ephes. vi. 2 to 1 Tim. ii. 5, the Biblical text being the uppermost.

taur. Of the seventh century, at Turin, contains the Gospels beginning at Matthew xiii. 34: not cited in W.-W.

tol. Written in the eighth century: this manuscript, which was written by a Visigoth, was given by Servandus of Seville to John, Bishop of Cordova, who presented it to the See of Seville in 988: it was afterwards at Toledo, and is now at Madrid. It was collated for the Sixtine Recension by Palomares, but reached Rome too late to be of use. (T in W.-W.)

In addition to the eleven manuscripts mentioned above as cited by Wordsworth and White, twenty-one others are regularly used by them, and a great number are cited occasionally. For these reference must be made to their edition, and for further particulars to Berger’s incomparable work.

On the Latin Versions compare TiGr., 948-1108, 1313, and especially Scrivener. The chapter on The Latin Versions in the Fourth Edition of the latter work (c. iii.) was re-written by H. J. White, the collaborateur of Wordsworth. See also Urt., 85-118, which deals with the Old Testament as well, and the article on the Old Latin Versions in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, iii. 47-62.

1. G. Riegler, Kritische Geschichte der Vulgata, Sulzbach, 1820; Lean. van Ess, Pragmatisch-kritische Geschichte der Vulgata im Allgemeinen und zunächst in Beziehung auf das Trientische Decret, Tübingen, 1824; Kaulen, Geschichte der Vulgata, Mainz, 1868; Berger, Histoire de la Vulgate pendant les premiers siècles du moyen âge, Paris, 1893 (List of the chief works dealing with the history of the Vulgate given on p. xxii. ff.).

2. On the subject of the Itala see Ziegler, Die Lateinischen Bibelübersetzungen vor Hieronymus und die Itala des Augustinus, Munich, 1879; Zycha, Bemerkungen zur Italafrage, in the Eranos Vindobonensis, 1311893, 177-184; Burkitt, The Old Latin and the Itala (Texts and Studies, vol. iv., No. 3, 1896).

3. On the language see Rönsch (d. 1888), Itala und Vulgata, 2nd Edition, 1875; also Die ältesten lateinischen-Bibelübersetzungen nach ihrem Werthe für die lateinische Sprachwissenschaft, by the same writer in the Collectanea Philologa, Bremen, 1891, 1-20; Kaulen, Handbuch zur Vulgata, Eine systematische Darstellung ihres Sprachcharakters, Mainz, 1870. Saalfeld, De Bibliorum S. Vulgatæ Editionis Graecitate, Quedlinburg, 1891.

4. Editions of the Text:—Among the earlier works the most important is that of Sabatier, which is not yet superseded, in the Old Testament at least, Bibliorum sacrorum Latinæ Versiones antiquæ, seu Vetus Italica, et cæteræ quæcunque in codicibus MSS. et antiquorum libris reperiri potuerunt, etc., opera et studio D. Petri Sabatier, 3 vols. folio,^[105] Rheims, 1743. Jos. Bianchini (Blanchinus), Evangeliarium Quadruplex, 2 vols. folio, Rome, 1749 (copies now cost about £4). After a long interval work in this field has been resumed in the Old Latin Biblical Texts, published at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, of which four parts have appeared:—1. The Gospel according to St. Matthew from the St. Germain MS. (g₁), now numbered Lat. 11553 in the National Library at Paris, with Introduction and five Appendices, edited by John Wordsworth, D.D., 1883 (6/-). 2. Portions of the Gospels according to St. Mark and St. Matthew from the Bobbio MS. (k), now numbered G. VII. 15 in the National Library at Turin, together with other fragments of the Gospels from six MSS. in the Libraries of St. Gall, Coire, Milan, and Berne (usually cited as n, o, p, a₂, s, and t). Edited, with the aids of Tischendorf’s Transcripts and the printed Texts of Ranke, Ceriani, and Hagen, with two facsimiles, by J. Wordsworth, D.D., ... W. Sanday, D.D., ... and H. J. White, M.A., 1886 (21/-). 3. The Four Gospels, from the Munich MS. (q), now numbered Lat. 6224 in the Royal Library at Munich, with a Fragment from St. John in the Hof-Bibliothek at Vienna (Cod. Lat. 502). Edited, with the aid of Tischendorf’s Transcript (under the direction of the Bishop of Salisbury), by H. J. White, 132M.A., 1888 (12/6). 4. Portions of the Acts of the Apostles, of the Epistle of St. James, and of the First Epistle of St. Peter from the Bobbio Palimpsest (s), now numbered Cod. 16 in the Imperial Library at Vienna. Edited, with the aid of Tischendorf’s and Belsheim’s printed Texts, by H. J. White, M.A., with a Facsimile, 1897 (5/-). (See notice in the Expository Times, April 1898, p. 320 ff.)

5. Wordsworth and White’s edition of the Vulgate is noticed by Berger in the Bull. Crit., 1899, viii. 141-144. It may be added here, as that critic observes, that insufficient regard is paid to the later history of the Latin text in this edition. At least one representative of a recension so important as that of the University of Paris in the thirteenth century might have been collated, and perhaps also the first printed edition, “the forty-two line” Bible.

On the authorised edition of 1590 and 1592, see Eb. Nestle, Ein Jubiläum der lateinischen Bibel. Zum 9 November 1892, in Marginalien und Materialien, 1893; also printed separately.

An exact reprint of the Latin Vulgate has recently been published by M. Hetzenauer from his Greek-Latin New Testament (see above, p. 25), entitled Novum Testamentum Vulgatae Editionis. Ex Vaticanis Editionibus earumque Correctorio critice edidit Michael Hetzenauer. Oeniponte, 1899. As an introduction to this edition reference may be made to the same writer’s Wesen und Principien der Bibelkritik auf katholischer Grundlage. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der offziellen Vulgataausgabe dargelegt. Innsbruck, 1900.

(c.) EGYPTIAN VERSIONS.

Next in importance to the Syriac versions from the East and the Latin from the West are the Egyptian versions from the South. Here too we find not one early version but several.

Dialects.

What used till lately to be called Coptic^[106] is merely one of the dialects into which the language of ancient Egypt was divided. And here we must distinguish three main branches—the Bohairic, the Sahidic, and the Middle Egyptian.

Bohairic.

(1) Bohairic^[107] is the name given to the dialect that was spoken in the Bohaira—i.e. the district by the sea and therefore Lower Egypt, the neighbourhood of Alexandria. It was 133the principal dialect, and being that used for ecclesiastical purposes over the whole country, and, moreover, that with which European scholars first became acquainted, the versions written in it were described as the Coptic simply. The term Memphitic, which was preferred for a time, is incorrect, because it was not till the eleventh century that the Patriarchate was transferred to Cairo—i.e. the district of Memphis, and in early times a different dialect was spoken there.

Sahidic.

(2) Sahidic is the name used to describe the dialect of Upper Egypt. It is sometimes and not improperly spoken of as the Thebaic in distinction to the Memphitic.

Middle Egyptian.

(3) Under the Middle Egyptian^[108] we have to distinguish—

(a) The Fayumic, spoken in the Fayum—i.e. the district to the S.W. of the Delta, watered by the Joseph Canal, and separated from the valley of the Nile by a narrow strip of the desert. It was in this district that those recent papyrus discoveries were made which have enriched the libraries and museums of Europe.

(b) The Middle Egyptian proper, or Lower Sahidic, a dialect which has its home on the site of ancient Memphis.

(c) The dialect of Achmim, which preserves a more primitive form of early Egyptian than any of those already referred to.

In the eleventh century the Coptic Bishop Athanasius specifies three dialects of the Coptic language—the Bohairic, the Sahidic, and a third which he says was already extinct, and to which he gives the name of Bashmuric; but whether this last is to be identified with the dialects included above under the name of Middle Egyptian, is not quite certain.

(1.) The Bohairic Version.

Bohairic.

This version, formerly designated as the Coptic, was first used for the New Testament by Bishop Fell of Oxford, who was indebted for his knowledge of it to Marshall. It was afterwards employed by Mill for his edition of 1707. It was first published in 1716 by Wilkins (or rather Wilke), a 134Prussian who had settled in England, with the title, “Novum Testamentum Aegyptium vulgo Copticum.” His edition was accompanied with a Latin translation. In 1734 Bengel obtained a few particulars regarding this version from La Croze, the Berlin Librarian. An edition of the Gospels by Moritz Schwartze appeared in 1846-47, and after his death the Acts and Epistles were published (1852) by Paul Boetticher, afterwards distinguished under his adopted name of de Lagarde. About the same time Tattam prepared a wholly uncritical edition of the entire New Testament, including the Apocalypse which did not originally form part of this version.^[109] Steindorff is of opinion that the Bohairic version originated in the Natron Valley during the fourth or fifth century, but others affirm that it is older, or at all events rests on an older foundation. The order of the New Testament books was originally: (1) the Gospels, in which John stood first, followed by Matthew, Mark, Luke, (2) the Pauline Epistles, with Hebrews between 2 Thess. and 1 Tim., (3) the seven Catholic Epistles, and (4) the Acts. More than fifty Bohairic manuscripts are preserved in the libraries of Europe, and from these an edition has been prepared for the Clarendon Press in two volumes, with exhaustive Introduction by G. Horner (1898).

The Greek text on which this version is based is regarded by present critics as particularly pure, and free from so-called Western additions.

(2.) The Sahidic Version.

Sahidic.

It was a long time before this version attracted any attention. In his New Testament, Wilkins mentioned two manuscripts, “lingua plane a reliquis MSS. Copticis diversa,” and Woide in 1778 announced his intention of editing certain fragments of the New Testament “iuxta interpretationem superioris Aegypti quae Thebaidica vocatur,” which were afterwards published by Ford in 1799. At the close of last century and the beginning of this, various other fragments 135were issued by Tuki, Mingarelli, Münter, Zoega, and Engelbreth, but it was not till more recent times that really important parts of the Old and New Testaments were published by Amélineau, Ciasca (in two vols.), Bouriant, Maspero, Ceugney, and Krall. In 1895 Goussen gave us a large part of the Apocalypse.^[110] This version, like the former, contained the entire New Testament, with the exception of the Apocalypse, and originally exhibited the Gospels in the same order—John, Matthew, Mark, Luke. Hebrews, however, stood between 2 Corinthians and Galatians. Its Greek original was quite different from that of the Bohairic version. (See Plate VIII.)

(3.) The Middle Egyptian Versions.

Middle Egyptian.

Of these only fragments are as yet known to exist. Portions of Matthew and John, and of 1 Cor., Ephes., Phil., Thess., and Hebrews in the Fayumic, or, as it used to be called, the Bashmuric dialect, were first published by Zoega in 1809, by Engelbreth in 1811, and especially by Bouriant (1889) and Crum (1893).

Fragments in the Lower Sahidic have been published in the Mitteilungen aus der Sammlung der Papyrus des Erzherzogs Rainer.

In the Achmim dialect, James iv. 12, 13 and Jude 17-20 are the only fragments that have been discovered as yet, and these have been published by Crum. Whether these fragments are really parts of a separate version, or merely dialectical modifications of the Sahidic, is not quite certain.^[111]

As to the date of these versions we have no definite information. It has been understood from certain passages in the Life of St. Anthony, who was born about the year 250, that in his boyhood he heard the Gospel read in Church in the language of Egypt, but that need not imply the existence of a written version, as the translation may have been made by a 136reader who interpreted as he read. In the third century, however, versions may have arisen, and it was certainly in the South that the first attempts at translation were made. Our oldest known manuscripts, a Sahidic containing 2 Thess. iii., and one in Middle Egyptian of Jude 17-20, date from the fourth or fifth century. The Sahidic version seems to have been made first, then the Middle Egyptian, and finally the Bohairic. To what extent the one influenced the other is a question requiring further investigation.

A correct edition and a critical application of these Egyptian versions is, next to a fresh examination of the minuscules, the task of most importance at present for the textual criticism of the New Testament. For the Sahidic version in particular represents a type of text found hitherto almost exclusively in the West, and looked upon as the outcome of Western corruption and licence, whereas it may really bear the most resemblance to the original form. In the Acts especially its agreement with the text of Codex D is remarkable. One might instance, e.g., the mention of Pentecost in Acts i. 5, the insertion of the Golden Rule in its negative form in xv. 20, 29, the relation of the vision in xvi. 10, and the description of the stone which twenty men could not roll away in Luke xxiii. 53, all of which are now found in a Greek-Sahidic manuscript. The Sahidic version, like the Bohairic, is well represented in European libraries, and the manuscripts are dated as a rule in the Egyptian fashion according to the years of the Martyrs—i.e. according to an era reckoned from August or September 284 A.D.

TiGr., 859-893. Scrivener⁴, ii. 91-144, revised by Horner, with additions by Headlam. H. Hyvernat, Étude sur les Versions Coptes de la Bible (Revue Biblique, v. (1896) 427-433, 540-569; vi. 1 (1897) 48-74.) Urt., 144-147. Forbes Robinson, Egyptian Versions, in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, vol. i. (1898) 668-673. W. E. Crum, Coptic Studies from the Egypt Exploration Fund’s Report for 1897-1898, 15 pp. 4to. For the Gospels, Horner’s edition eclipses all others. It is entitled, The Coptic Version of the New Testament in the 137Northern dialect, otherwise called Memphitic or Bohairic, with Introduction, Critical Apparatus, and literal English Translation. Vol. I. Introduction, Matthew and Mark, cxlviii. 484. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1898; Vol. II. Luke and John, 548 pp., 1898. See notice by Hyvernat in the Revue Biblique, 1899, pp. 148-150, and also W. E. Crum, lib. cit., where reference is also made to the Manuscrits Coptes au Musée ... à Leide, 1897. As Horner’s edition as yet only covers the Gospels, the remaining portions of the New Testament must still be sought in the two parts published by Lagarde after Schwartze’s death, Acta Apostolorum coptice (1852), and Epistulae Novi Testamenti coptice (1852). On Brugsch’s Recension in the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vii. (1853) pp. 115-121, see ibid., p. 456, and Lagarde, Aus dem deutschen Gelehrtenleben, pp. 25-65, 73-77. Tattam’s Bohairic-Arabic edition was published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

The first fragments of the New Testament in Sahidic appeared in Tuki’s Rudimenta in 1778, and Woide’s editio princeps, announced in the same year, was brought out after his death by Ford in 1799. Amélineau’s Fragments Thébaines inédits du Nouveau Testament were published in vols. xxiv.-xxvi. of the Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache (1886-1888). Considerable portions of the Apocalypse were issued in facsimile by Goussen in the first Fasciculus of his Studia Theologica (Lipsiae, 1897). Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphical writings have also been discovered in recent times, as, for example, the Acta Pauli in a manuscript of the seventh century, written in Sahidic consonants with Middle Egyptian vocalisation. These are to be published by A. Schmidt. See Addenda, p. xv.

See also Amélineau, Notice des manuscrits coptes de la Bibliothèque Nationale renfermant des textes bilingues du Nouveau Testament, in the Athenæum, No. 3601, p. 599.

The foregoing versions are those of most importance in the criticism of the text. There are, however, one or two others which, though inferior in value, are still interesting. Among these is—

(d.) THE GOTHIC VERSION.

Gothic.

This is the work of Ulfilas—i.e. Wölflin—a Cappadocian by descent, who in the year 340 succeeded Theophilus, the first 138Bishop of the Goths.^[112] While the tribe was still settled in the Crimea, he is said to have invented an alphabet, and translated both the Old and the New Testament for their use. In the Old Testament Ulfilas followed the Septuagint according to the Recension of Lucian of Antioch (d. 312), which circulated in the diocese of Constantinople. In the New Testament the text is likewise essentially that of Chrysostom. The traces of Latin influence which were supposed to be discernible in the version, and which may either have existed from the first or been introduced at a later time, relate at most, perhaps, to matters of orthography.

(1) The Gothic version first became known through the so-called Codex Argenteus which Ant. Morillon, Granvella’s secretary, and Mercator the geographer saw in the Monastery of Werden in the sixteenth century. It was afterwards seen at Prague by Richard Strein (d. 1601). In 1648 it was brought to Sweden as a prize of war, and presented to Queen Christina, or her librarian, Isaac Voss. It was purchased by Marshall de la Gardie in 1662, bound in silver, and deposited in the library at Upsala, where it has since remained. Ten leaves were stolen from the manuscript between 1821 and 1834, but restored, after many years, by the thief upon his deathbed. This magnificent Codex was written in the fifth or sixth century on purple with gold and silver lettering. It now comprises 187 leaves out of 330, and contains fragments of the four Gospels in the order, Matthew, John, Luke, Mark. It was published for the first time in 1665, from a transcript made by Derrer ten years before.

(2) Codex Carolinus, the Wolfenbüttel palimpsest already referred to as Q of the Gospels (see p. 69 above) and the Old Latin gue of Paul (see p. 118), contains some forty verses of the Epistle to the Romans. It was first published in 1762.

139(3) Fragments of seven palimpsests in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, discovered by Cardinal Mai in 1817. Like Codex Carolinus, they are in all probability from the Monastery of Bobbio. They exhibit part of the Pauline Epistles and fragments of the Gospels. A few quotations from Hebrews are also found in a theological work. No portion of Acts, (Hebrews), Catholic Epistles, or Apocalypse has as yet been discovered. Editions of the Gothic version have been published by Gabelentz and Löbe (1836-1843), Stamm (1858), Heyne ⁵(1872) ⁹(1896), Bernhardt (Halle, 1875, 1884), and Balg (Milwaukee, 1891). St. Mark was edited by Müller and Höppe in 1881, and by Skeat in 1882.

Literature.—On Ulfilas, see Scott, Ulfilas, the Apostle of the Goths, Cambr., 1885. Bradley, The Goths, in the “Story of the Nations” Series, 1888. Gwatkin, Studies of Arianism, 1882. Urt., pp. 119-120, where see literature, to which add Eckstein, Ulfilas und die gothische Uebersetzung der Bibel, in Westermann’s Illustr. Monatshefte, Dec. 1892, 403-407; Jostes, Das Todesjahr des Ulfilas und der Uebertritt der Gothen zum Arianismus (Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, xxii. i. 158 ff.). Jostes gives 383 as the date of Ulfilas’s death. On the other side, see Kauffmann, Der Arianismus des Wulfila in the ZfdPhil., xxx. (1897) 93-113; Luft, Die arianischen Quellen über Wulfila in the ZfdAltert., xlii. 4; Vogt, Zu Wulfilas Bekenntnis und dem Opus imperfectum, ibid. Kauffmann, Beiträge zur Quellenkritik der gotischen Bibelübersetzung in the ZfdPhil.; (ii.) das N. T. (xxx., 1897, 145-183); (iii.) das gotische Matthäusevangelium und die Itala; (iv.) die griechische Vorlage des gotischen Johannesevangeliums (xxxi., 1898, 177-198): also by the same author, Aus der Schule des Wulfila. Auxentii Dorostorensis epistula de Fide, Vita, et Obitu Wulfila im Zusammenhang der Dissertatio Maximini contra Ambrosium herausgegeben. Strassburg, 1899. P. Batiffol, De quelques homilies de St. Chrysostome et de la version gothique des écritures (Revue Biblique, Oct. 1899, pp. 566-572), see also ThLz., 1900, No. i.; LCbl., 1900, No. 28. On the relation of the Gothic version to the codex Brixianus (f), see Burkitt in the Journal of Theological Studies, i. p. 131 ff., and compare Addenda, p. xv.

On the Gothic language and writing, see Douse, Introduction to 140the Gothic of Ulfilas. London, 1886; the grammars of Braune and Skeat, and the dictionaries of Schulze, Heyne, and Bernhardt; see also Luft, Studien zu den ältesten germanischen Alfabeten, Gütersloh, 1898, viii. 115, who traces eighteen characters to the Greek alphabet and nine to the Latin and Ulfilas’s own invention. On R. Löwe’s Reste der Germanen am schwarzen Meer (Halle, 1896), see the story told by Melanchthon according to Pirkheimer (Th. St. und Kr., 1897, 784 ff.).

To what extent the remaining ancient versions were taken directly from the Greek or influenced by one or other of those already described is still subject of dispute.

(e.) THE ETHIOPIC VERSION.

According to the tradition of the Abyssinian Church, the Ethiopic version of the New Testament was made from the Greek previous to the fifth century. Dillmann accepts this as correct, but Gildemeister would assign it to the sixth or seventh century, and thinks that traces are discernible of Syrian Monophysitism. Guidi decides for the end of the fifth or beginning of the sixth century. In addition to the usual twenty-seven books, the Ethiopic New Testament has an Appendix consisting of a work on Canon Law in eight books called the Synodos, so that the Ethiopian Church reckons in all thirty-five books in the New Testament. In later times the version was undoubtedly corrected from Arabic and Coptic texts. The first edition appeared in Rome in 1548-1549, but neither it nor those issued since are of any real critical worth.

At least a hundred Ethiopic manuscripts, mostly of late origin, exist in the libraries of Europe. What is perhaps the oldest is preserved in Paris. It dates from the thirteenth century, and exhibits the Gospels in an unrevised text.

Literature.—See TiGr., 894-912. Scrivener, ii. 154 ff. re-written by Margoliouth. Urt., 147-150 (F. Praetorius). R. H. Charles, Ethiopic Version in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, i. 791-793. C. Conti Rossini, Sulla Versione e sulla Revisione delle Sacre Scritture in Etiopico, in the Z. für Assyriologie, x. 2, 3 (1895). The view of 141Lagarde (Ankündigung, 1882, p. 28; cf. also Gesammelte Abhandlungen, lxi. 113), that this version may have been made from the Arabic or Egyptian in the fourteenth century, is now generally rejected.

(f.) THE ARMENIAN VERSION.

La Croze, the Berlin Librarian, thought this the “Queen of the Versions.”

Till the fifth century of the Christian era Syrian influence was supreme in Armenia, and the inhabitants of that region first received the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments in the form of a translation from the Syriac. But in the year 433 two pupils of Mesrob, returning from the Synod of Ephesus, are said to have brought back with them from Constantinople a Greek Bible, and having learned Greek in Alexandria, to have translated it into Armenian. According to another account this was done by St. Sahak (390-428) about the year 406. The first edition of the Armenian New Testament was brought out in Amsterdam in the year 1666^[113] by Osgan of Eriwan, who had been sent to Europe four years previously by the Armenian Synod. It was edited from a defective manuscript, the missing portions of which Osgan supplied from the Vulgate. A better edition was published in 1789 by Zohrab, who used twenty manuscripts, and especially a Cilician Codex of the year 1310. He was of opinion that the Armenians did not receive the Apocalypse before the eighth century. Zohrab’s text was collated for Tregelles by Rieu, whom Tischendorf seems to have drawn upon in his editions.

The Armenian manuscripts display variations of several sorts. In some John’s Gospel precedes the Synoptists, in others it is followed by the Apocryphal “Rest of St. John.” The Apocalypse was not read in church prior to the twelfth century. In the oldest manuscript of the entire New Testament, at Venice, which dates from the year 1220, the order of 142the other books is Acts, Catholic Epistles, Apocalypse, Pauline Epistles, with the Epistle of the Corinthians to Paul. In Moscow there is a manuscript of the year 887, in Venice one dated 902, in Etschmiadzin one written in the year 986 and bound in ivory covers of the third or fourth century. In the last-mentioned Codex the words, “of Ariston the Presbyter,” are found after Mark xvi. 8, as the heading of what follows. (See Plate IX.) We learn from this, what is evidently correct, viz., that the present conclusion of Mark’s Gospel is due to a certain Ariston, who may perhaps be identified with Aristion, the teacher of Papias in the second century. The earlier Armenian version also contained the two verses Luke xxii. 43, 44, which were omitted in the later.

Literature.—TiGr., 912-922. Scrivener, ii. 148-154. F. C. Conybeare, Armenian Versions of N. T., in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, i. 153 f. See also J. A. Robinson, Euthaliana, c. v.; The Armenian Version and its supposed relation to Euthalius, in Texts and Studies, vol. iii. (1895). On Aristion see Expositor, 1894, p. 241, and below, p. 295.

(g.) THE GEORGIAN VERSION.

This version, called also the Grusinian or Iberian, is thought to have been made from the Greek in the sixth century, though it may also be derived from the Armenian. It contains the pericope adulteræ (John vii. 53-viii. 11), but places it immediately after ch. vii. 44, which is the more remarkable, seeing that in the Old Latin Codex b, the passage from vii. 44 onwards has been erased. The Georgian version was first printed at Moscow in 1743.

Scrivener, ii. 156-158; re-written by F. C. Conybeare. TiGr., 922 f.

(h.) THE ARABIC VERSIONS.

Some of these were made directly from the Greek, others from the Syriac and the Coptic, while there are also manuscripts exhibiting a recension undertaken at Alexandria in 143the thirteenth century, The New Testament was even cast into that form of rhymed prose made classic by the Koran. As early as the eighth century we find Mohammedan scholars quoting various passages of the New Testament, particularly the sayings regarding the Paraclete in John xv. 26, 27, xvi. 13, which they understood of Mohammed. He himself, however, knew the Gospel narrative from oral tradition only. The oldest known manuscript is perhaps one at Sinai, written in the ninth century, from which Mrs. Gibson edited the text of Romans, 1 and 2 Cor., Gal., and Ephes. i. 1-ii. 9, in the Studia Sinaitica, ii. The four Gospels were published in 1864 by Lagarde from a Vienna manuscript, in which a number of various readings were cited from the Coptic, Syriac, and Latin, this last, e.g., being adduced in support of a reading hitherto found only in D, one Old Latin (g), and the Lewis-Syriac: οὔκ εἰσιν δύο ἢ τρεῖς συνηγμένοι ... παρ’ οἷς οὔκ εἰμι ἐν μέσῳ αὐτῶν (Matthew xviii. 20). The first edition of the Gospels appeared at Rome in 1591. |Other versions.| In common with the remaining versions of the New Testament, Persic, Old High German, Anglo-Saxon, Bohemian, and Slavonic, these secondary Arabic versions are not only exceedingly interesting from the point of view of the history of language and culture, but they are also valuable here and there for the restoration of the original text. In the present work, however, we cannot enter more fully into them.

Literature.—TiGr., 928-947. Scrivener, ii. 161-164. Urt., 150-155. F. C. Burkitt, Arabic Versions, in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible, i. 136-138, where see literature. Burkitt thinks that the oldest monument of Arabic Christianity is the manuscript formerly belonging to the Convent of Mar Saba, now known as Cod. Vat. Arab. 13, and numbered 101 in TiGr., which is generally assigned to the eighth century. It originally contained the Psalter, Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, and is derived from the Syriac. Fragments of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and of the Pauline Epistles, are all that now remain. From the same convent come two manuscripts of the ninth century, containing a version made directly from the 144Greek, and perhaps ultimately derived from the Greek-Arabic manuscript cited as Θ^h, of which only four leaves have been preserved (see above, p. 72). On a Græco-Arabic MS. connected with the Ferrar Group (211^ev), see Lake in the Journal of Theological Studies, i. 117 ff. Most of the Coptic manuscripts are accompanied by an Arabic version. The one contained in Cod. Vat. Copt. 9 of the year 1202 is the best, and forms the basis of our printed editions. The first revision was undertaken in the year 1250, at Alexandria, by Hibat Allâh ibn el-Assâl, and a second towards the end of the thirteenth century, from which the variants in Lagarde’s edition are derived. An Arabic version of the Acts and all seven Catholic Epistles, found in a ninth century manuscript at Sinai, and numbered 154 in Mrs. Gibson’s Catalogue, is published by her in Studia Sinaitica, vii. (1899).

For the remaining versions of the N. T., see Scrivener, ii. pp. 158-166 (Slavonic, Anglo-Saxon, Frankish, Persic). These minor versions will be treated in vol. iv. of Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, under the general heading of Versions. See also Urtext und Uebersetzungen der Bibel.

3. Quotations.

Our third source of material for the restoration of the text of the New Testament is Quotations found in other books. These are of great value, because they represent, for the most part, definite manuscripts existing in certain places at the time of the writer quoting them, and also because a large number of them belong to a time from which no codices have come down to us. The value of their testimony depends, of course, on the conditions already mentioned (p. 32)—viz., that the author quoted accurately, and the copyist copied faithfully, and the editor edited correctly. Quotations made by Jewish writers as well as by Christian will fall to be considered, only it is doubtful if in their case we have more than one or two uncertain allusions to Matthew v. 17. So, too, will the quotations made by pagan opponents of Christianity, particularly those of Celsus in the second century, and of the Emperor Julian. But here again we are not in possession 145of their complete works, which can only be restored by a similar process and with more or less uncertainty from the quotations from them found in the writings of the Apologists.^[114] The books of those Christian Churches which were isolated from the main church will also be valuable. Even a verse of Scripture carved upon a stone in an old ruin may have something to tell us.

Brief quotations were usually made from memory. It was not so convenient to turn up the passage in an old manuscript as it is now in our handy printed editions.^[115] In the case of longer passages and verbal quotations generally, indolent copyists were sometimes content with simply adding καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς. In the Apostolic Constitutions, ii. 22, for example, where the entire prayer of Manasses was meant to be given, the copyist of a certain manuscript,^[116] after writing the opening words from Κύριε down to δικαίου, omitted all the rest, amounting to thirty-one lines of print, substituting simply καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς τῆς εὐχῆς ἃ ὑμεῖς οὐκ ἀγνοεῖτε. (See further, Apost. Const., i. 7, Lagarde, p. 8, 23; ii. 14, p. 28, 7. 11; 29, 2). This, however, is not without its parallel in modern times. As late as 1872, an Oxford editor, in bringing out Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John, wrote down only the initial and final words of the quotations in his manuscript, and allowed the compositor to set up the rest from a printed edition of the Textus Receptus. Another editor in Vienna, in preparing an edition of Cyprian’s Works, preferred those very manuscripts in which the Scriptural quotations had been accommodated to the current text of later times. Only when a quotation is given by an author 146several times in exactly the same form is it safe to depend on the actual wording, or when in a Commentary, e.g., the context agrees with the quoted text. Collections of Scriptural passages like the Testimonia of Cyprian and the so-called Speculum of Augustine are also taken directly from manuscripts of the Bible.

Francis Lucas of Brügge was the first to explore the writings of the Church Fathers for the express purposes of textual criticism. They are referred to in four notes found in the Complutensian Polyglot. In his edition of 1516, Erasmus cites a whole series of Patristic witnesses—Ambrosius, Athanasius, Augustine, Cyprian, Gregory of Nazianzen, Origen, and Theodoret. Since that time all judicious critics have paid attention to them. Valuable service has been rendered for Tertullian by Rönsch, and for Origen by Griesbach. For Augustine, Lagarde is specially to be mentioned. Most of the Fathers were thus cared for by Burgon, who indexed the New Testament quotations in sixteen large volumes, which were deposited in the British Museum after his death. The only pity is that the works of those very Fathers that are of most importance are not yet satisfactorily edited. All the more welcome, therefore, is the appearance of the Vienna Academy’s Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, of which forty volumes have been issued since 1867, and of the Berlin Academy’s edition of the Ante-Nicene Greek Fathers, of which one volume of Hippolytus and two of Origen have made their appearance.^[117]

The earliest Fathers are valuable chiefly for the history of the Canon. That is to say, their evidence must be taken simply as showing what New Testament writings they were acquainted with, and here the argumentum ex silentio is to be applied with caution. This is the case with Barnabas and Clement^[118] in the first century, and Ignatius and Hermas in the 147first half of the second. Even with the much more extensive writings of Justin, there is still considerable dispute—e.g., as to what Gospels he made use of.^[119] Irenæus of Lyons is valuable on account of his extreme carefulness, and would be particularly so if it could be proved that he brought his New Testament with him from Smyrna^[120] and if his writings were extant in Greek, and not, as is the case with most of them, in Latin only. In Egypt Clement of Alexandria holds a prominent place, but by far the most distinguished of all is the great Biblical scholar of antiquity, Origen (d. 248). Already we find these writers appealing to manuscripts, and distinguishing them by such epithets as “good,” “old,” “emended,” “most,” or “few.” In the case of the Ante-Nicene Fathers their locality is an important consideration, whether Antioch, Cæsarea (Eusebius), Egypt, Constantinople (Chrysostom), or Cappadocia (Theodore), etc. Their expositions of Scripture are preserved in the so-called Catenæ, or continuous commentaries, in which the interpretations of different Fathers are arranged continuously like the links of a chain. It not unfrequently happens in these Catenæ that the words of one writer are cited under the name of another. The evidence afforded by the writings of the Heretics is no less valuable, if we except those passages, which are not numerous, in which they are understood to have altered the text of the Scriptures. The works of Marcion have been preserved for the most part in Latin by Tertullian. They have recently been collected and restored by Zahn. The Latin translator of Irenæus also belongs, in all probability, to the time of Tertullian, and not to the fourth century. This unknown translator seems to have preserved the Scriptural quotations of Irenæus with greater fidelity than the later Church Fathers who cite them in the Greek. Of Latin writers contemporary with or subsequent to Tertullian, those of most importance for the text of the Old Latin Bible are Cyprian, Hilary of Poictiers, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine and 148his opponent Pelagius, and for the Apocalypse, Tyconius and Primasius. From the works of Augustine Lagarde collected no fewer than 29540 quotations from the New Testament in addition to 13276 from the Old.

Valuable testimony is also afforded by Syrian and Armenian writers. It is only with their assistance, e.g., that it has been possible to restore one of our oldest authorities—the Diatessaron of Tatian—which dates from the second century.

(1) Further examples might be adduced of the unreliable nature of manuscripts and printed editions.

We find, e.g., in the voluminous commentary of the so-called Ambrosiaster,^[121] the following note on the quotation in 1 Cor. ii. 9:—“Eye hath not seen, etc.”—“hoc est scriptum in Apocalypsi Heliae in apocryphis.” In place of the last five words, two manuscripts and all the printed editions previous to that of St. Maur—i.e. prior to the year 1690—have “in Esaia propheta aliis verbis.”

Compare also what Zahn says in his Einleitung, ii. 314. “A comparison of the quotations in Matthew with the LXX. is rendered more difficult by the fact that in manuscripts of the latter written by Christians, and especially in Cod. Alexandrinus, the text of the O. T. has been accommodated to the form in which it is cited in the N. T. Cf., also, p. 563 on the quotation from Zechariah xii. 10, found in John xix. 37.” The same writer says (p. 465): “In the Chronicle of Georgios Hamartolos (circa 860), all the manuscripts save one assert the peaceful death of John (ἐν εἰρήνῃ ἀνεπαύσατο), but this one says the very opposite, μαρτυρίου κατηξίωται, and goes on to make certain other additions.” On the other hand, we must not forget in this connection the testimony preserved by 149Eusebius to the scrupulous care taken by Irenæus for the propagation of his writings in the identical form in which he wrote them. According to that historian, he wrote at the end of one of his works the following note:—Ὁρκίζω σε τὸν μεταγραψόμενον τὸ βιβλίον τοῦτο κατὰ τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ καὶ κατὰ τῆς ἐνδόξου παρουσίας αὐτοῦ, ἧς ἔρχεται κρῖναι ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς, ἵνα ἀντιβάλλῃς ὃ μετεγράψω καὶ κατορθώσῃς αὐτὸ πρὸς τὸ ἀντίγραφον τοῦτο ὅθεν μετεγράψω ἐπιμελῶς, καὶ τὸν ὅρκον τοῦτον ὁμοίως μεταγράψῃς καὶ θήσεις ἐν τῷ ἀντιγράφῳ.^[122]

(2) It was Lagarde who most clearly recognised and pointed out the unsatisfactory way in which the Fathers had previously been edited. How much care is necessary in the matter of the text is shown by the discussions connected with the treatment of Scriptural quotations in the new Vienna edition of Augustine (see Urt., 76, 94; Preuschen, in the ThLz. for 1897, 24, col. 630). Even in the new Berlin edition one cannot absolutely rely on the form of the Scriptural quotations exhibited in the text, but must always verify it by means of an independent examination of the apparatus. A few passages from the first volume of Origen recently published will show this, and prove at the same time how faulty the editions have been hitherto. This first volume of Koetschau’s new edition of Origen opens with the Exhortation to Martyrdom (εἰς μαρτύριον προτρεπτικός), a work which is to be assigned to the year 235. The text of previous editions is grounded solely on a manuscript at Basel written in the sixteenth century (No. 31, A. iii. 9), which is itself a copy, and a not altogether correct copy, of a Parisian manuscript written in the year 1339, not known to the first editors of Origen (P = suppl. grec. 616). Moreover, the Basel manuscript was not transcribed with sufficient accuracy, or the print was not superintended with sufficient care by the scholar who prepared the first printed edition of 1674. With the help of a fresh manuscript (M = Venetus Marc. 45, of the fourteenth century) it is now established that the writer of P arbitrarily altered the text in a great number of passages, and, above all, abridged it mainly by the excision of Scriptural quotations. Where Origen, e.g., in citing a passage gives all three Synoptists, P quite calmly drops one of them. The Panegyric of Gregory Thaumaturgus is treated in the same way, this manuscript omitting about 100 out of some 1200 lines of print. And 150these were the texts to which till the present we were referred for our Patristic quotations! To take an example:

On τοὺς ἐμοὺς λόγους, Luke ix. 26, Tischendorf, who in his seventh edition gave τοὺς ἐμούς (= my followers) as the correct reading, observed that this reading, without λόγους, was supported by Dael Or., i. 298. But he added—and this is a proof of the carefulness with which the quotation from Origen is employed here—sed præcedit ουτε επαισχυντεον αυτον η τους λογους αυτου. But if we turn up this passage in the new edition, we find that it now reads (i. 34, 9 ff.): ουτ’ επαισχυντεον αυτον η τους οικειους αυτου η τους λογους αυτου, and then the three parallel passages are quoted in the order frequently found in Origen—viz., Matthew x. 33 = Luke ix. 26 = Mark viii. 38. Previous editions entirely omitted this last quotation, as well as the words in the context, η τους οικειους αυτου. But now everything is in order. The words ουτ’ επαισχυντεον αυτον refer to οστις δ’ αν απαρνησηται με in Matt. x. 33; η τους οικειους αυτου to ος γαρ αν επαισχυνθη με και τους εμους in Luke ix. 26; and η τους λογους αυτου to ος γαρ αν επαισχυνθη με και τους εμους λογους, in Mark viii. 38. So that whereas, on the ground of previous editions, Tischendorf was obliged to point out a discrepancy between Origen’s context and his peculiar quotation from Luke, the context of the new edition serves to confirm this peculiar quotation, and shows at the same time that we can accept it on the authority of this very passage, as against a former passage (p. 296 = 31, 7), where the verse in Luke is found in the newly-employed manuscript also with the words τους εμους λογους. That the editor should have put λογους in the first passage within brackets, or at least have pointed out the discrepancy between it and the quotation further down, would have been too much to expect, seeing that his manuscripts of Origen gave no manner of ground for doing so; it is the duty of those who investigate the Scriptural quotations in Origen to pay attention to such things. But there are also passages where the editor has actually gone in the face of his manuscripts, and wrongly altered the text of his Scriptural quotations, having evidently allowed himself to be influenced by the printed text of the N. T., and paying too little respect to the manuscripts.

An attentive reader will have observed that the reading in Luke ix. 26, τους εμους = my followers, which is now established for Origen, is at present supported by D alone of the Greek manuscripts and by three Old Latin witnesses. (It is also found in the Curetonian 151Syriac, but unfortunately the corresponding words in the Sinai-Syriac could not be made out with certainty by Mrs. Lewis; see Some Pages, p. 72 = p. 168 in the first edition). Now, look at the passage in Origen’s work, i. 25, 26 ff. (p. 293 in De la Rue’s edition): ο μεν γαρ Ματθαιος ανεγραφε λεγοντα τον κυριον ... ο δε Λουκας ... ο δε Μαρκος· ἀββᾶ ὁ πατὴρ, δυνατά σοι πάντα· παρένεγκε κ.τ.λ. The passage is printed thus by Koetschau, agreeing exactly with the earlier printed editions and our texts of the N. T. in Mark xiv. 36. But in this he is far wrong. Because, as his own apparatus shows us, the Venetian manuscript, which he rightly follows elsewhere, reads the words in the order δυνατὰ πάντα σοί, which is exactly the order of the words (Mark xiv. 36) in D, but again in no other Greek manuscript with the solitary exception of the cursive 473.^[123] But there are even passages where Koetschau follows the printed text of the N. T. in the scriptural quotations in despite of both his manuscripts. In i. 29, 13 (i. 295 De la Rue), where Matt. x. 17-23 is quoted, he inserts after πῶς ἢ τί λαλήσητε the clause δοθήσεται γὰρ ὑμῖν ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῇ ὥρᾳ τί λαλήσητε from Matt. x. 19, on the supposition that these words may have dropped out of the archetype of M P on account of the homoioteleuton. But they are also omitted in Cod. D of the N. T. And this, moreover, is not the only point of agreement between this manuscript and the text given in this quotation. There is, e.g., the omission of δέ in v. 17, the reading παραδώσουσιν in v. 19, which Koetschau has altered to the more grammatical παραδῶσιν, again without sufficient reason and in defiance of both his manuscripts, and the omission of ὑμῶν in v. 20, of which there is no mention in Tischendorf (see the Collation of D in my Supplementum). Origen also agrees with D, though not verbally, in reading κἂν ἐκ ταύτης διώκωσιν φεύγετε εἰς τὴν ἄλλην further down (v. 23), where again Koetschau seems to me to have unnecessarily inserted τὴν, which is omitted in his principal manuscript and also in D. Compare, also, i. 22, 12, where Origen agrees with D in reading φέρωσιν (Luke xii. 11) instead of 152εἰσφέρωσιν, read by our critical editions on the authority of א B L X, or προσφέρωσιν by the textus receptus with A Q R, etc. Both concur, also, in the omission of the first ἢ τί in the same verse.

What is here said as to the close affinity of Origen’s Bible with Codex D is corroborated by the testimony of the Athos manuscript discovered by von der Goltz (see above, p. 90). This manuscript confirms what we knew before—viz. that Marcion’s text had χριστὸν and not κύριον or θεὸν in 1 Cor. x. 9. But it also tells us what we did not know—viz. that χριστὸν was the only reading known to Origen, and that κύριον in the Synodical Epistle addressed to Paul of Samosata, published by Turrianus (in Routh’s Reliquiæ Sacræ, iii.² 299), is not the original reading but a later substitute for χριστόν. This is made out by Zahn in the ThLbl., 1899, col. 180, who concludes by saying that Clement, Ecl. Proph., 49, should not be omitted in a proper apparatus, and that κύριον ought never again to be printed in the text. Our most recent editors, Tischendorf, Westcott and Hort, Weiss, and Baljon, put κύριον in their text without so much as mentioning χριστόν in the margin, or among the Noteworthy Rejected Readings, or in the list of Interchanged Words (Weiss, p. 7). In the Stuttgart edition the text is determined by a consensus of previous editions, and I was obliged to let κύριον stand in the text, but I have put χριστόν in the margin, as Tregelles also did. In this instance the textus receptus is actually better than our critical editions. The rejected reading is again the Western, and Zahn, in commenting on the newly-discovered testimony as to the text of 1 John iv. 3 (see below, p. 327), pertinently remarks that “here again it is perfectly evident, as any discerning person might have known, that many important readings which were wont to be contemptuously dismissed as Western, were long prevalent in the East as well, not only among the Syrians but also among the Alexandrians, and were only discarded by the official recensions of the text that were made subsequent to the time of Origen.” These illustrations will serve to show that not only is the editing of the Patristic texts no easy matter, but also that the employment even of the best editions is not unaccompanied with risks. See Koetschau, Bibelcitate bei Origenes, ZfwTh., 1900, pp. 321-378.

(3) The Rev. Prebendary Ed. Miller is at present at work on a Textual Commentary upon the Holy Gospels, on the ground of Burgon’s Collection and his own researches. A specimen of this work (Matthew v. 44) is given in his Present State of the Textual Controversy respecting the Holy Gospels, which was printed for private 153circulation, and may be had of the author.^[124] In this little pamphlet he takes up the question (p. 30) whether Origen in the De Oratione 1 (De la Rue, i. 198; Koetschau, ii. 299, 22) quotes from Luke (vi. 28) or Matthew (v. 44), and decides for the latter. Koetschau is of the opposite opinion, giving “Luke vi. 28 (Matthew v. 44).” In the case of Patristic quotations, it will be seen that matters are frequently very complicated. It must be borne in mind, too, that the various writers did not use the same copy of the Scriptures all their life long. At different times and in different localities they must necessarily have had different copies before them.

(4) It is further to be observed that in the case of controversial writings, such as those of Origen against Celsus, and Augustine against the Manichæans, the question must always be considered whether the Scriptural quotations found in them are quotations made by Origen and Augustine themselves, or taken by them from the writings they assail or refer to; and also whether the quotations have been made directly from a manuscript of the Bible, or from the works of a previous writer. Borrowing from an author without acknowledgment may have been a much more common thing in olden times than it is even at present.

In Clement of Rome (c. 13), in Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, ii. p. 476), and partly also in the Epistle of Polycarp (c. 2), we find the following quotation:—“Be ye merciful that ye may obtain mercy: forgive that ye may be forgiven: as ye do, so shall it be done to you: as ye give, so shall it be given to you: as ye judge, so shall ye be judged: as ye are kind, so shall kindness be shown to you: with what measure ye mete, it shall be meted unto you.” We find also in Clement of Rome (c. 46), and in Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, iii. p. 561), the quotation: “Woe to that man: it were good for him if he had never been born, rather than that he should offend one of my elect: it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he be drowned in the depth of the sea, than that he should offend one of my little ones.” Neither of these quotations is found literally in our canonical Gospels. Accordingly, Rendel Harris concludes from the testimony of these various witnesses that they must have been taken from an Urevangelium, now perished (Contemporary 154Review, Sept. 1897). This view is combated, it seems to me rightly, by H. T. Andrews in the Expository Times for November 1897, p. 94 f. He thinks it probable that Clement of Alexandria and Polycarp are both dependent on Clement of Rome.^[125]

(5) In spite of all these difficulties, a systematic examination of the Patristic quotations remains one of the most important tasks for the textual criticism of the N. T. We have most useful collections, both ancient and modern, of passages from the Fathers to illustrate the history of the Canon, and their use of the Scriptures has been scrutinised in the interests of dogmatic history, but there are not yet, so far as I know, any collections of Patristic quotations to elucidate the history of the text. Two things are specially wanted at present. One is a collection, arranged according to time and locality, of all the passages in which the Fathers appeal to ἀντίγραφα. In the new volumes of Origen, e.g., we find two such references—κατά τινα τῶν ἀντιγράφων τοῦ κατὰ Μάρκον εὐαγγελίου (i. 113), and κατὰ τὰ κοινὰ τῶν ἀντιγράφων (ii. 52).^[126] The other desideratum is a collection of all the passages in the biographies of the Saints where mention is made of the writing of Biblical manuscripts. It is said of Evagrius, e.g., in the Historia Lausiaca (c. 28 in Preuschen, Palladius, p. 111), εὐφυῶς γὰρ ἔγραφε τὸν ὀξύρυγχον χαρακτῆρα, and the preparation of Biblical manuscripts is also referred to in the Vita Epiphanii (ed. Petav. ii.), and in Cassiodorus, De Institutione Divinarum Literarum (see above, p. 50). On the use hitherto made of Patristic testimony see the section De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis in TiGr., 1129-1230. An abridged list of those mentioned there will be found in Baljon’s New Testament, pp. xv.-xxiii. A catalogue of the names and dates of the Patristic writers most frequently cited in critical editions of the 155N. T. is given in Scrivener, ii. pp. 172-174.^[127] See also Urt., p. 22, 56 f., 94. On the Old Latin Didascalia, see Ed. Hauler in the W.S.B., 1895, vol. cxxxiv. p. 40 ff., and the Mitteilungen of B. G. Teubner, 1897, ii. p. 52.^[128] On the Biblical text of Filastrius (C.S.E., vol. xxxviii., 1898), see Kroll in the notice of Marx’s edition in the Berlin. Phil. Wochenschrift, 1898, 27. On Jovinian, see TU., New Series, ii. 1, etc. On the quotations from the Gospels in Novatian (Pseudo-Cyprian) see Harnack in TU., xiii. 4.

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