Chapter I: History of the Printed Text Since 1514

[Transcriber’s Note: Throughout this book, superscripts and subscripts are used for various purposes. Superscripts after the titles of books indicate edition numbers. Superscripts after the symbols for manuscript groups are used to name members of the group. Subscripts are also used for distinguishing documents.

In this text version, superscripts are indicated with the caret symbol: ^. A single-character superscript will be shown as text^1; a multiple-character superscript will be wrapped in brackets: text^{1, 2}, text^{abc}. Subscripts are indicated with the underscore, followed by the subscript text wrapped in brackets: text_{1}.

The asterisk, *, is often used as part of the name of a manuscript.

There are also some instances of characters printed, one on top of the other. In this e-book they are rendered A/B, with A on top and B on the bottom.]

It is not quite creditable to Christian scholarship at the close of the Middle Ages that not a single printed edition of the Greek New Testament appeared during the course of the fifteenth century. The Jews printed their Hebrew Psalter as early as 1477, and the entire Hebrew Bible in 1488.

[Sidenote: Editio princeps.
Complutensian Polyglot.]

1. The honour of producing the first edition belongs to the Spanish Cardinal Francis XIMENES de Cisneros (1437-1517). It was included in the so-called _Complutensian Polyglot_, which takes its name from Complutum (now Alcalà de Henares), where it was printed. The plan of the work was conceived as early as 1502, in celebration of the birth of the future Emperor Charles V. The scholar who had the principal part in it was James Lopez de Stunica. The printing of the New Testament was completed on the 10th January 1514, and of the remaining five volumes, comprising the Old Testament with Grammar and Lexicon, on the 10th July 1517. On the 8th November of the same year the Cardinal died. It was not, however, till the 22nd March 1520 that Pope Leo X. sanctioned the publication of the work, the two Vatican manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament, which had been borrowed in the first year of Leo’s papacy, having been returned on the 9th July 1519.[2] On the 5th December 1521, the presentation copy designed for the Pope, printed on parchment and bound in red velvet, was placed in the Vatican Library. No copies seem to have reached Germany through the trade till the year 1522. Only 600 copies were printed, which were sold at 6-½ ducats per copy—about £3 of our present English money. The Cardinal, who enjoyed the income of a king but was content to live like a monk, expended over 50,000 ducats on the undertaking. At the present time, copies of the Complutensian Polyglot, especially those printed on parchment, are counted among the rarest treasures of libraries. The Old Testament is printed in three columns, the Latin text of the Bible used in the Church of the Middle Ages standing between the original Hebrew text of the Synagogue and the Alexandrian Greek version, “like Jesus between the two thieves.” The New Testament has only two columns, that on the left containing the Greek text, that on the right the Latin version. For the sake of those learning Greek the corresponding words in each are indicated. The type is modelled on the characters found in good manuscripts. Of accents, the acute alone is used to mark the tone syllable.

LITERATURE.—Scrivener, _Introduction_, ii. c. 7; Hoskier (see below,
p. 5); Frz. Delitzsch, _Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte der
Polyglottenbibel des Cardinals Ximenes_, Leipzig, 1871;
_Fortgesetzte Studien_, 1886; _Urtext und Uebersetzungen der Bibel_,
p. 64. A facsimile of the title-page and colophon will be found in
Schaff’s _Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version_.
The decree of Pope Leo X. is printed in the Greek and Latin
Testament of Van Ess, Tübingen, 1827.

Previous to Ximenes, however, the famous Venetian printer Aldus Manutius had conceived the idea of such a Polyglot. In the Preface to his undated Greek Psalter (_circa_ 1497), a triglot Bible was promised. Of this he was reminded from London by Grocyn on the 6th October 1499. On the 9th July 1501 he wrote about it to the German humanist Conrad Celtes, to whom he sent the first specimen page on the 3rd September of the same year. (Facsimile in Renouard, _L’Imprimerie des Aldes_^{2, 3}.)

Still earlier, the Magnificat and the Benedictus[3] had been printed among the hymns at the end of the Greek Psalter (Milan, 1481; Venice, 1486). These were the first portions of the Greek New Testament to be printed, while the first printed in Germany appeared at Erfurt in 1501-2. The first edition of the Greek New Testament for sale was Erasmus’s edition of 1516.

LITERATURE.—On Aldus, see Nestle, _Septuagintastudien_, i. 2; ii.
11. On Aldus’s well-known device, the anchor and dolphin, see Léon
Dorez, _Études Aldines_, Revue des bibliothèques, vi. (1896), part
5-6, p. 143 ff.; part 7-9; also J. R. Harris, _The Homeric
Centones_, London, 1898, p. 24. The device is emblematic of the
favourite motto of Augustus and Titus, ἀεὶ σπεῦδε βραδέως, Semper
festina lente.

[Sidenote: Erasmus, 1516.]

2. Froben, the printer of Basel, was anxious to forestall the costly edition of the Spanish Cardinal, and with this object appealed on the 15th March 1515 to the famous humanist Desiderius ERASMUS (1467-1536), then in England. His edition appeared as early as the 1st March 1516, and was dedicated on the 1st February to Pope Leo. The printing was begun in the previous September, and was partly superintended by Zwingli’s friend, John Oecolampadius of Weinsberg. Erasmus himself confessed afterwards that his New Testament was “præcipitatum verius quam editum,” though he boasted that he had employed in its preparation not any sort of manuscripts, but the oldest and most correct copies.[4] As early as 1734, J. A. Bengel recognised that in the Apocalypse Erasmus must have used only one manuscript, and that partly mutilated, so that he was unable to read it correctly and was obliged to supply its lacunæ by means of a retranslation from the Latin into Greek. And this conclusion was confirmed in 1861 by the rediscovery of that very manuscript by Franz Delitzsch in the Oettingen-Wallerstein Library at Mayhingen.[5]

In a parallel column Erasmus gave a translation of the Greek into elegant Latin. The Emperor protected the edition for four years by copyright, but as early as February 1518 it was reprinted by Aldus Manutius in his Greek Bible. It was sanctioned by the Pope on the 10th September 1518. Four successive editions were afterwards prepared by Erasmus: the second in 1519, the third in 1522, the fourth (improved) in 1527, and the fifth in 1535.

In his third edition, Erasmus for the first time incorporated the well-known “comma Johanneum,” the passage about the Three Witnesses (1 John v. 7). He did so on the evidence of a manuscript now in Dublin (Montfortianus, 61), in which the passage had probably been inserted from the Vulgate by the English Franciscan monk Roy. From the Vulgate it had already been received, in a slightly different form, into the Complutensian Polyglot. Luther himself purposely omitted it from his version. The first edition of his translation to contain it was that printed at Frankfurt by Feyerabend in 1576. It was not inserted in the Wittenberg editions till 1596. After 1534 no Greek edition appeared without it for the space of 200 years.

LITERATURE.—Scrivener, vol. ii. p. 182 ff.; Frz. Delitzsch,
_Handschriftliche Funde_, i., Leipzig, 1861; H. C. Hoskier, _A full
Account and Collation of the Greek Cursive Codex Evangelium 604 ...
together with ten Appendices containing ..._ (B) _... the various
readings by the five editions of Erasmus_, 1516, 1519, 1522, 1527,
1535.... (F) _Report of a Visit to the Public Library at Bâle, with
facsimile of Erasmus’s second MS. Evan. 2_, ... London, 1890. On
Erasmus’s supplementary matter, the New Version, Annotationes,
Paraclesis ad lectorem, Methodus and Apologia, as also on the entire
practical and reforming aim of his N.T., see R. Stähelin in the
_Protestantische Real-Encyklopädie_, third edition, v. 438. Froude,
_Life and Letters of Erasmus_, p. 126 ff.

[Sidenote: Collections of editions.]

3. The number of editions of the Greek New Testament which have been brought out since the time of Ximenes is about 1000. No library in the world contains them all. In the last century the Danish Pastor Lorck possessed perhaps the largest private collection of Bibles. This was purchased by Duke Charles of Württemberg, and has found a place in the Royal Public Library at Stuttgart. Unfortunately, it is not possible to supplement or enlarge it in the way that it deserves. The largest collection of the present century is that of the late Prof. Ed. Reuss of Strassburg. In his descriptive catalogue he established the genealogy of the separate editions by a collation of the readings in 1000 selected passages. Several editions he was unable to obtain: some he was obliged to regard as of doubtful existence: others, again, mistakenly quoted by previous collectors, he was able to discard once for all. His labours form the basis of those further researches prosecuted with much ardour chiefly in England and America: in the latter by the German-Swiss scholar Philip Schaff (d. 20th Oct. 1893), and his American friend I. H. Hall (d. 1896), in England by F. H. A. Scrivener (d. 26th Oct. 1891), and in Germany by the American C. R. Gregory. Mention can be made of only a few of these printed editions.

LITERATURE.—Ed. Reuss, _Bibliotheca Novi Testamenti Graeci, cuius
editiones ab initio typographiae ad nostram aetatem impressas
quotquot reperiri potuerunt collegit digessit illustravit E. R.
Argentoratensis_, Brunsvigae, 1872. Tischendorf, _Novum Testamentum
Graece ad antiquissimos testes denuo recensuit apparatum criticum
apposuit Constantinus de Tischendorf_, Lipsiae (Hinrichs), vol. i.
1869; vol. ii. 1872; vol. iii., _Prolegomena scripsit Caspar Renatus
Gregory additis curis Ezrae Abbot_, 1894, 8vo. (vol. iii. cited in
the following part of this work under the symbol _TiGr._). F. H. A.
Scrivener, _A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New
Testament_. Fourth edition, edited by Ed. Miller, 2 vols., London,
1894. P. Schaff, _Companion to the Greek Testament and the English
Version_. Fourth edition revised, New York, Harper, 1892. Schaff’s
_Companion_ gives, in an Appendix, Reuss’s list of printed editions
of the Greek N.T., with additions bringing it down to 1887, by I. H.
Hall. It also contains an interesting set of facsimile illustrations
of twenty-one standard editions of the Greek N.T., showing in each
case the title-page and a page of the print. I. H. Hall, _A Critical
Bibliography of the Greek New Testament, as published in America_,
Philadelphia, 1883. Also, by the same author, _Some Remarkable Greek
New Testaments_, in the Journal of the Society of Biblical
Literature and Exegesis, Dec. 1886, 40-63. S. P. Tregelles, _Account
of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament with remarks on its
revision and a collation of the critical texts with that in common
use_, 1854. Copinger, _The Bible and its Transmission, being an
historical and bibliographical view of the Hebrew and Greek Texts,
and the Greek, Latin, and other Versions of the Bible (both
manuscript and printed) prior to the Reformation. With 28
facsimiles._ London, Sotheran, 1897, large 8vo. H. J. Holtzmann,
_Einleitung in das Neue Testament_ (_Allgemeiner Teil_, _Geschichte
des Textes_), Freiburg, 1886. _Urtext und Uebersetzungen der Bibel
in übersichtlicher Darstellung_, a reprint of the article “Bibeltext
und Bibelübersetzungen,” in the third edition of the
Real-Encyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, Leipzig,
Hinrichs, 1897, pp. 15-61 (Tischendorf), O. v. Gebhardt, “_Bibeltext
des Neuen Testamentes_,” PRE, ii. 728-773 (cited hereafter as
_Urt._). C. R. Gregory, _Textkritik des Neuen Testamentes_, vol. i.
Leipzig, 1900. Vol. ii. in the press.

[Sidenote: First critical edition.]

4. The first to prepare a really critical edition of the Greek New Testament, _i.e._ one based on a collation of manuscripts, was Simon de Colines (COLINAEUS), the father-in-law of the Parisian printer Robert Stephen (Estienne). In his edition^1, which appeared in 1534, he adopted for the first time a number of readings that are now generally accepted, though naturally he did not succeed in gaining credit for them. Up till the time of Mill and Bengel the publishers and their more or less uncritical coadjutors simply reprinted the text of Ximenes and Erasmus, mostly the latter, with trifling variations.

Among the innovations introduced by these editors was the choice of a more convenient form. The first editions were all in folio. But in 1521, Anselm, then in Hagenau but previously in Tübingen, reduced the size to quarto; in 1524 Cephaleus in Strassburg still further to octavo; while Valder printed the first miniature edition in Basel in 1536. The smallest edition printed previous to this century is that of Jannon, 1628 (Sedan); the smallest of this century is that of Pickering, 1828 (London).

But a much more important feature was the collation of fresh manuscripts. The credit of being pioneer in this respect rests with the Parisian Typographer-Royal, Robert STEPHEN (1503-1559). [Sidenote: Stephen.] He was assisted by his son Henry Stephen (1528-1598), particularly in the preparation of his third edition of 1550, the _Editio Regia_, which takes its name from the inscription on its title-page in honour of Henry II., Βασιλεῖ τ’ ἀγαθῷ, κρατερῷ τ’ αἰχμητῇ.[6] The first edition, called _O mirificam_, from the opening words of its preface, appeared in 1546. The Editio Regia was the first to contain a critical apparatus in which fifteen manuscripts indicated by the Greek letters β—ιϛ were collated with the text of the Complutensian which was designated α. All the manuscripts employed were of late date, with two exceptions, viz., the Codex Bezae, of which we shall have a good deal to say in the sequel, and a Parisian MS. of the eighth century, now known as L.

[Sidenote: Verse division.]

An important innovation of another sort is due to the same Robert Stephen, who printed at Geneva in the following year (1551) a fourth edition containing the Greek text with the Latin version of Erasmus on the outer side and the Vulgate on the inner.[7] With a view to carrying out this arrangement conveniently, he divided the text into separate verses or very small sections, which he numbered on the margin. In this way he introduced into the New Testament not only a convenient verse-enumeration—there are 7959 verses in all—but also the unfortunate practice of printing the text in separate verses. Mill in 1707, and notably Bengel in 1734, were the first to revert to the practice of printing the text in paragraphs divided according to the sense while retaining the enumeration of the verses in the margin. [Sidenote: Chapters.] The customary division of the New Testament books into chapters is much earlier, having been first invented in Paris for the Latin Bible by Stephen Langton (died Archbishop of Canterbury in 1228), and at once adopted in the earliest printed editions of the Vulgate. It was employed in the Complutensian Polyglot with a subdivision of the various chapters into A B C etc.

LITERATURE.—_Nov. Test. textus Stephanici_ A.D. 1550, _ed._
Scrivener, Camb., 1859, 1871 etc. Hoskier (as above) ... (B) _A
Reprint with corrections of Scrivener’s list of differences between
the editions of Stephen 1550 and Elzevir 1624, Beza 1565 and the
Complutensian, together with fresh evidence ... by the other
editions of Stephen of 1546, 1549, 1551...._ Ezra Abbot, _De
Versibus_, in _TiGr._ 167-182. I. H. Hall, _Modern Chapters and
Verses_, in Schaff’s _Religious Encyclopædia_, i. 433. _Journal of
the Soc. of Bib. Lit. and Exeg._, 1883, 60; 1891, 65.

It is frequently stated that copies exist of Stephen’s edition of 1551 (the first to contain the verse enumeration) bearing on the title-page the date MDXLI. In the two I examined belonging to the collections of Lorck and Reuss, the two halves of the number MD and LI are far apart. In the case of the Lorck copy it is possible to suppose that a letter has been erased from the middle, but not in the Reuss copy. In his Preface, Stephen says: “Quod autem per quosdam ut vocant versiculos opus distinximus, id, vetustissima Graeca Latinaque ipsius Novi Testamenti exemplaria secuti, fecimus: eo autem libentius ea sumus imitati, quod hac ratione utraque translatio posset omnino eregione Graeco contextui respondere.” As Ezra Abbot pointed out, Stephen gave a double number 19/20 to the verse Τινὲς δὲ ... πρὸς μέ in Acts xxiv. A similar double enumeration occurs in the previous chapter, where the verse Γράψας ... χαίρειν is numbered 25/26. Accordingly, Abbot’s supposition becomes pretty certain, that the verse division was originally made for a Latin copy which, at the passage in Acts xxiv., contained the additional sentence: Et apprehenderunt me clamantes et dicentes, Tolle inimicum nostrum. And in chapter xxiii. several Latin editions show an extra sentence at the place marked with the double number: et ipse postea calumniam sustineret tanquam accepturus pecuniam. But what edition it was from which Stephen took the enumeration into his Greek copy is not yet known. Unfortunately, as Abbot shows (_l.c._ 173-182), later editions frequently deviated from Stephen’s enumeration. Even Oscar v. Gebhardt, in his editions of Tischendorf’s text, followed in eight instances a different verse division from that recommended by Gregory in his Emendanda (p. 1251 ff.).

Several mistakes in numbering crept into the Stuttgart edition of the N.T., but the division and enumeration have been carefully compared with that of the Reuss copy for the second edition. There are differences in verse-division even in the reprint of Westcott and Hort’s Greek Testament (Macmillan fount, 1895), Heb. xii. 22, 23: in Swete’s _Gospel of St. Mark_ (Mk. ii. 18, 19), and in Cronin’s edition of _Codex Purpureus Petropolitanus_ (Lk. iii. 23, 24, ix. 7, 8.)

The Textus Receptus is usually indicated by the Greek letter ϛ, the initial of Stephen’s name.

[Sidenote: Beza.]

Following Stephen, the French theologian Theodore de Bèze (BEZA 1519-1605), the friend and successor of Calvin in Geneva, prepared, between 1565 and 1611, four folio and six octavo editions,[8] which are noteworthy as forming, with the last two editions of Stephen, the basis of the English Authorised Version. Beza was the owner of two valuable Greek-Latin manuscripts of the Gospels with the Acts and Pauline Epistles, one of which, the now so famous Codex Bezae, he presented to the University of Cambridge in 1581. He himself, however, made little use of these in his editions, as they deviated too far from the printed texts of the time. Beza seems also, in the preparation of his Geneva edition, to have been the first to collate the oriental versions. For this purpose he employed the Syriac edition of Emmanuel Tremellius (1569), and for Acts and 1 and 2 Corinthians the Arabic version put at his disposal by Franciscus Junius.

LITERATURE.—Scrivener, ii. 188 ff.; Hoskier (as above): _the various
readings ... by the remaining three Bezan editions in folio of 1582,
1588-9, 1598, and the 8vo. editions of 1565, 1567, 1580, 1590,
1604_.

[Sidenote: Polyglots.
1. Antwerp.]

5. The credit of presenting these oriental versions in a convenient combination for the interpretation of the Bible belongs to the so-called _Antwerp Polyglot_, the Biblia Regia, printed in eight folio volumes between 1569 and 1572 by Christopher Plantin, a French printer residing in Antwerp. In this work the Greek New Testament is printed twice, first in vol. v., alongside the Vulgate and the Syriac text with its Latin translation, and again in vol. vi. with the interlinear version of Arias Montanus. Plantin was aided in this enterprise by a grant of 12,000 ducats from King Philip II. It was carried out under the supervision of the Spanish theologian Benedict Arias, called Montanus from his birth-place Frexenal de la Sierra.

“Labore et Constantia” was the motto of this celebrated family of
printers, who continued to carry on their trade on the same premises
till August 1867. Nine years later the house was sold to the city
and converted into the “Musée Plantin.”

Of the Antwerp Polyglot 960 ordinary copies were printed, 200 of a better quality, 30 fine, 10 superfine, and 13 on parchment, for which last 16,263 skins were used. One of these Montaigne saw and admired in the Vatican Library; another, the copy dedicated to the Archduke Alba, is in the possession of the British Museum. The undertaking was the glory of Plantin’s life, but it was also the beginning of his financial difficulties. Copies were sold to book-sellers at 60 gulden each, and to the public at 70 gulden (about £6 and £7). Ordinary copies now fetch from £6 to £7 or £8. At the sale of the Ashburnham Collection in 1897 a parchment copy realised £79. The supplements, including lexical and other matter, are still valuable to a certain extent. But here the collector must note that certain parts have been reprinted.

On the Polyglots, see: _Discours historique sur les principales éditions des Bibles Polyglottes. Par l’Auteur de la Bibliothèque Sacrée_, Paris, 1713; especially pp. 301-554, “Pièces justificatives du discours précédent.” Also, Ed. Reuss, _Polyglottenbibeln_, PRE^2, xii. 95-103 (1883). Max Rooses, _Christophe Plantin, Imprimeur Anversois_, Antwerp, 1884. Fol. 100 plates. Also _Correspondance de Plantin_, edited by Rooses. 2 vols. 1886. L. Degeorge, _La Maison Plantin à Anvers_. 3rd ed. Paris, 1886. R. Lorck, _Das Plantin-Haus in Antwerpen_. Vom Fels zum Meer, 1888-9, ix. 328-346. On the double imprint see Rooses, p. 123; A. Rahlfs in Lagarde’s Bibliotheca Syriaca, p. 19. On Plantin’s connection with the Familists see PRE^3, v. 751-755.

[Sidenote: 2. Parisian.]

A still more extensive undertaking than the Antwerp Polyglot is that brought out in Paris by the advocate Guy Michel LE JAY. This _Parisian Polyglot_ extends to ten folio volumes of the largest size, furnished externally in the most sumptuous manner. Le Jay expended his whole fortune on the edition, and was obliged at last to sell it as waste paper, being too proud to accept the offer of Cardinal Richelieu, who wished to purchase the patronage of the enterprise for a large sum and thereby acquire the credit of it. The scholars who gave most assistance in the preparation of the oriental texts were Jean Morin and the Maronite Gabriel Sionita, the latter of whom superintended the Syriac portion. The two volumes of the New Testament, viz. vol. v. 1, comprising the Gospels, and vol. v. 2, the Acts, Epistles, and Apocalypse, appeared in 1630 and 1633. In addition to the texts printed in the Antwerp Polyglot, the Parisian contained a Syriac version of the so-called Antilegomena, _i.e._ those parts of the New Testament at one time disputed (2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Apocalypse), and it had also an Arabic version, each one being accompanied with a Latin translation.[9]

[Sidenote: 3. London.]

Less sumptuous, but more copious, convenient, and critically valuable, is the last, and at the present day still most used of the four great Polyglots—the _London Polyglot_ of Brian WALTON (1600-1661). It contains in all nine languages. In the New Testament (vol. v.) there is the Greek text of Stephen with slight alterations, the version of Arias, the Vulgate, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, and (for the Gospels only) Persic versions, each with a literal translation into Latin. The sixth volume also contains Walton’s Apparatus, which was re-issued at Leipzig in 1777, and again at Cambridge by F. Wrangham in two volumes in 1828. It is really a kind of Introduction to Biblical Criticism. Finally, in two supplementary parts, there is Edmund Castle’s _Lexicon Heptaglotton_, a thesaurus linguae semiticae such as no one since has ventured to undertake.

The London Polyglot first appeared in 1657, under the patronage of
Cromwell, but after the Restoration it received a new Preface from
the editor, who was raised to the See of Chester by Charles II. In
this Preface Cromwell is styled “Magnus Draco ille.” Accordingly,
bibliophiles draw a sharp line of distinction between republican and
loyalist copies. One of the former costs considerably more than the
latter, the most recent prices running from £22 to £31. This is said
to have been the first work brought out in England by subscription.
See Schaff’s “_Companion_” for facsimiles of title-page and page of
text. Todd: _Life of Brian Walton with the Bishop’s Vindication of
the London Polyglot Bible_. London, 1821. 2 vols.

For this Polyglot, in addition to the critical works of previous scholars, the Codex Alexandrinus of the Greek Bible, sent by Cyril Lucar to Charles I. in 1628, was also employed for the first time. Its readings are set at the foot of the Greek text and indicated by the letter A. This was the origin of the modern custom of indicating manuscripts with Roman letters in the apparatus of critical editions not only of the New Testament but of other books as well, a custom which has generally prevailed since the time of Wettstein. That gift of Cyril Lucar seems really to have awakened for the first time a general desire for critical editions. At the same time it was Walton’s edition that made Stephen’s text of 1550 the “textus receptus” in England.

[Sidenote: Elzevir.]

6. On the Continent a similar result was attained by the enterprising Dutch printers Bonaventura and Abraham ELZEVIR of Leyden. What scholars had a hand in their edition, if we may speak of scholars at all in this connection, is not known. In 1624 the Elzevirs published, in a handy form and beautifully printed, an edition the text of which was taken mainly from Beza’s octavo edition of 1565. In their Preface to a new issue in 1633 they said “textum ergo habes nunc ab omnibus receptum, in quo nihil immutatum aut corruptum damus,” while they professed that even the smallest errors—“vel minutissimae mendae”—had been eliminated with judgment and care. By means of this catchword they actually succeeded in making their text the most widely disseminated of all during 200 years. The English Bible Society alone have issued not fewer than 351,495 copies of it in the 90 years of their existence, and at the present time are still printing this text alone. They issued 12,200 copies of it in the year 1894. For several centuries, therefore, thousands of Christian scholars have contented themselves with a text based ultimately on two or three late manuscripts lying at the command of the first editors—Stephen, Erasmus, and Ximenes—a text, moreover, in which the erroneous readings of Erasmus, already referred to, are retained to this day.

LITERATURE.—Scrivener, ii. 193. Hoskier ... (C) _a full and exact
comparison of the Elzevir editions of 1624 and 1633, doubling the
number of the real variants hitherto known, and exhibiting the
support given in the one case and in the other by the subsequent
editions of 1641, 1656, 1662, 1670, and 1678_. On the Elzevirs see
G. Berghman, _Nouvelles Études sur la Bibliographie Elzevirienne.
Supplément à l’ouvrage sur les Elzevier de M. Alphonse Willems_,
Stockholm, 1897. Also, A. de Reume, _Recherches historiques,
généalogiques et bibliographiques sur les Elzevier_, Brussels.
Facsimile of the edition of 1633 in Schaff’s _Companion_.

[Sidenote: Critical attempts.]

7. Even those who were impelled by a greater spirit of research did not yet get back to the oldest attainable sources. In Rome, CARYOPHILUS set about preparing a new edition. With this view, about the year 1625 he collated twenty-two manuscripts with the Antwerp Polyglot—ten for the Gospels, eight for the Acts and Epistles, and four for the Apocalypse. Among these were the most celebrated manuscript of the Vatican Library, the “Codex Vaticanus” _par excellence_, and another of the same collection, dating from the year 949 (Tischendorf’s S), one of the oldest manuscripts of the Greek New Testament whose date is known with certainty. The results of this collator’s labours were printed at Rome in 1673. But such collations were not then made with that exactitude which is the primary condition of works of this nature at the present day, though even now it is not always observed. In 1658 Stefan de COURCELLES (Curcellaeus, 1586-1659), a native of Geneva, brought out an edition which was printed by the Elzevirs, and which is valuable for its scholarly Introduction, its careful collection of parallel passages, and its fresh collation of manuscripts. In this edition the “Comma Johanneum” was included in brackets. The editor also expressed the opinion that even conjectural readings deserve consideration. Courcelles had further projects in view, but these were interrupted by his death.

In 1672, in Germany, John SAUBERT published a collection of various readings in St. Matthew’s Gospel which he had compiled from printed editions, manuscripts, ancient versions, and quotations in the Greek and Latin Fathers.

In 1675 John FELL, afterwards Bishop of Oxford, published anonymously at the Sheldonian Theatre, _i.e._ the Oxford University Press, an edition in the preparation of which more than 100 Greek manuscripts were employed. Among the ancient versions the Gothic of Ulfilas and the Coptic were also made use of.

About the same time (1689) there appeared anonymously at Rotterdam a _Histoire Critique du Texte du Nouveau Testament_, by Richard SIMON, a member of the French Congregation of the Oratory. Simon is the father of the historical method of critical introduction to the New Testament. With his work, what might be called the infancy of New Testament criticism comes to a close. With Mill’s New Testament begins the period of its maturity, especially if Simon’s works are taken as belonging to it. Such, at least, was the judgment expressed in 1777 by the Göttingen scholar J. D. Michaelis. But we would say rather the period of its youth, for otherwise we should now have reached the time of its old age, and much work still remains to be done.

[Sidenote: Mill, 1707.]

8. Encouraged by Bishop Fell, John MILL (1645-1707), about 1677, set to work upon an edition which appeared in the year of his death.[10] The value of Mill’s New Testament lies in its extended critical apparatus, and particularly in its Prolegomena. An enlarged edition was brought out in 1710 by Ludolf Küster of Westphalia (1670-1716), which, however, had such a small sale that it had to be reissued with a new title-page at Leipzig in 1723, and again at Amsterdam in 1746. In Mill’s time the number of various readings in the New Testament was estimated at 30,000: a competent estimate will now make them more than four or five times as many. That is to say, there are almost more variants than words.

Mention must also be made of Nicolaus TOINARD’S Latin-Greek Harmony of the Gospels, which appeared at Orleans in the same year as Mill’s New Testament, and which was the fruit of nearly as many years’ labour. Toinard was the first Catholic after Erasmus, and the last previous to Scholz, to undertake a critical edition of the New Testament. He was also the first editor after Beza to estimate properly the critical value of the Vulgate.

[Sidenote: Bentley.]

It was Edward Wells who set the example of greater freedom in the adoption into the text of new readings from the manuscripts. His famous countryman, the great philologist Richard BENTLEY (1662-1742), projected a great critical edition of the New Testament, but unfortunately got no further than the preparation of materials and the publication of his “Proposals” in 1720. He undertook to remove two thousand errors from the Pope’s Vulgate, and as many from that of the Protestant Pope (Stephen), without using any manuscript under 900 years old. But as his edition never appeared, his nephew had to refund the 2000 guineas prepaid by the subscribers.

In 1729 MACE published an edition anonymously, in which, perhaps, most courage was shown in departing from the ordinary text. Thereafter, English work in this department was suspended for nearly a century. It was transferred to Germany and the Netherlands by the Swabian scholar Bengel and by Wettstein of Basel.

LITERATURE.—A. A. Ellis, _Bentleii Critica Sacra_, Camb., 1862. R.
C. Jebb, _Bentley_, London, 1882. _TiGr._, 229-240.
Wordsworth-White, I. pp. xv-xxviii (see below, p. 123).

[Sidenote: Bengel.]

9. As early as 1711, G.D.T.M.D., _i.e._ Gerhard de Trajectu Mosae (Maestricht) Doctor, a Syndic of Bremen, published at Amsterdam an edition prefaced by 43 canons or rules of criticism. Thereafter, in 1725, J. A. BENGEL (1687-1752) issued his _Prodromus Novi Testamenti Graeci recte cauteque adornandi_, in which he unfolded a most carefully thought-out scheme for a new edition, undertaking to reduce all Gerhard von Maestricht’s 43 canons to one comprehensive rule of four words. That was the principle now commonly expressed in the shorter but less satisfactory form—_lectio difficilior placet_. Bengel himself chose a more careful mode of expression—_proclivi scriptioni praestat ardua_. Six years later he was able to issue his _Notitia Novi Testamenti Graeci recte cauteque adornati_. It was published in 1734 at Tübingen by Cotta in a handsome quarto.[11] In the same year a small octavo edition appeared at Stuttgart in which he urged the duty expressed in the motto,

Te totum applica ad textum,
Rem totam applica ad te.

Of the latter, four editions were afterwards brought out. Of the large edition, the Apparatus, pronounced by Haussleiter to be a “memorable work of most solid and productive learning,” was reprinted separately after his death. Bengel was too timid. He was unwilling to admit into the text any reading which had not already appeared in some printed edition. But he inserted new readings in the margin and classified them. Out of 149 readings pronounced by Bengel to be genuine, only 20 are not now generally approved. Out of 118 whose genuineness appeared to him probable but not quite certain, 83 are now accepted.

But Bengel’s most important contribution to the textual criticism of the Greek New Testament consists in the sound critical principles which he laid down. He recognised that the witnesses must not be counted but weighed, _i.e._ classified, and he was accordingly the first to distinguish two great groups or families of manuscripts. His principles were reaffirmed by the celebrated philologist Lachmann, the first great textual critic of our time, and the advance which the latest English critics have made on Tischendorf is really due to the fact that they have gone back to Bengel.

LITERATURE.—Eb. Nestle, _Bengel als Gelehrter, ein Bild für unsere
Tage_. (In Marginalien und Materialien; also printed separately,
Tübingen, 1893.) Scrivener, ii. 204.

[Sidenote: Wettstein.]

For the time, however, Bengel’s rival, John WETTSTEIN (1693-1754), outdid him. His treatise on the Various Readings of the New Testament was published as early as 1713, to be followed by his Prolegomena, which appeared anonymously in 1730, and later by his New Testament,[12] which was issued in two folio volumes in 1751 and 1752. His Apparatus is fuller than that of any previous editor, while he also gives a detailed account of the various manuscripts, versions, and Patristic writers. It was he who introduced the practice, already referred to, of indicating the ancient MSS. by Roman letters and the later MSS. by Arabic numerals. He too, however, still printed the Elzevir text, following Maestricht’s edition of 1735. At the foot of the text he placed those readings which he himself held to be correct.

LITERATURE.—Scrivener, _Introduction_, ii. 213; Carl Bertheau,
PRE^2, xvii. 18-24, 1886.

[Sidenote: Griesbach.]

10. J. J. GRIESBACH (1745-1812) was the first in Germany who ventured to print the text of the New Testament in the form to which his criticism led him. He was the pupil of Salomo Semler, who had combined the principles of Bengel and Wettstein. These principles were adopted and carried out by Griesbach. He enlarged the Apparatus by a more exact use of citations from the Fathers, particularly from Origen, and of various versions, such as the Gothic, the Armenian, and the Philoxenian. In his classification of the witnesses, Griesbach distinguished a Western, an Alexandrian, and a Byzantine Recension. The edition, in four folio volumes, printed by Göschen at Leipzig (1803-1807), is rightly described by Reuss as “editio omnium quae extant speciosissima.”[13] His text was more or less faithfully followed by many later editors like Schott, Knapp, Tittmann, and also by Theile.

[Sidenote: Matthaei.]

Griesbach’s opponent, Christian Friedrich MATTHAEI, a Thüringian (1744-1811), was misled into attributing a too great value to a large number of manuscripts in Moscow of the third, the Byzantine, class.

A considerable amount of critical material was collected at the expense of the King of Denmark by Andreas Birch (afterwards Bishop of Lolland, Falster, and Aarhuus), by D. G. Moldenhauer, and by Adler.

A similar service was rendered, though not with sufficient care, by J. M. Augustin SCHOLZ, Professor of Catholic Theology in Bonn.

LITERATURE.—On Matthaei see O. v. Gebhardt, _Christian Friedrich
Matthæi und seine Sammlung griechischer Handschriften_, Leipzig,
1898.

[Sidenote: Lachmann.]

It was Carl LACHMANN (1793-1851) who first broke with the Textus Receptus altogether. He was a master in the domain of textual criticism. He distinguished himself first in the department of classical and Teutonic philology, but came afterwards to render equal service to the textual criticism of the New Testament. His object was to restore the text to the form in which it had been read in the ancient Church about the year 380, going on the ground of the oldest known Greek and Latin manuscripts, _i.e._ the oldest Eastern and Western authorities.[14] He did not claim to go further back than that date with any certainty. But it was still open to question whether that were not possible, and whether the grounds on which Lachmann’s work was based might not be still further extended and confirmed.

[Sidenote: Tischendorf.]

11. The task which Lachmann set before him was prosecuted with the most brilliant success in and from Germany by Gottlob (Aenotheus) Friedrich Constantin von TISCHENDORF (b. 18th January 1815, d. 7th December 1874). In the course of several tours, first in Europe and afterwards in the East, from the year 1841 onwards, he discovered and collated a number of the most important and ancient manuscripts of the Bible. Among these the most notable was the Codex Sinaiticus, found by him on Mount Sinai in 1859, and now in St. Petersburg, the oldest known manuscript of the present day which contains the entire Greek New Testament. On the basis of the material collected by himself and others, Tischendorf prepared eight different editions between 1841 and 1872.[15] His seventh edition, consisting of 3500 copies, appeared in 1859, previous to the discovery of the Sinaiticus. The text of this edition differed from that of 1849 in 1296 instances, of which no fewer than 595 were reversions to the Textus Receptus. The text of the last edition, the octava critica maior, which was issued complete in eleven parts between 1864 and 1872, differed from that of the seventh in 3572 places. The third volume of the editio octava maior, containing the Prolegomena, was completed in three parts, extending to 1428 pages, by Caspar René Gregory between 1884 and 1894, a work which affords the most complete survey of what has been done on the Greek New Testament up to the present time.

LITERATURE.—Scrivener, ii. 235; _TiGr._, 1-22; _Urt._, 49-52. Apart
from the Editio Octava Maior, the most useful editions will be found
to be those of O. v. Gebhardt (see below, p. 23), or the Editio
Academica ad editionem oct. maior. conformata, Leipzig, Mendelssohn,
16mo, 1855, twentieth edition, 1899.

[Sidenote: Tregelles.]

While the editions of Tischendorf were appearing on the Continent, an edition began to be issued in England, which was completed in the course of twenty years. It was the work of a Quaker, Samuel Prideaux TREGELLES (b. 1813, d. 1875), who, while reaping no profit from his undertaking, has left in it a monument to his fidelity. In this edition (1857-1879)[16] those passages in which the editor was unable to pronounce a final judgment from the accessible material are indicated by the form of the type.

[Sidenote: Westcott and Hort.]

A still more important advance was made by Brooke Foss WESTCOTT (b. 1825), now Bishop of Durham, and Fenton John Anthony HORT (b. 23rd April 1828, d. 30th November 1892). In 1881, these Cambridge scholars, after nearly thirty years of joint labour, published two volumes, the first containing the Text with a brief survey of its history and resulting criticism, the second giving a detailed exposition of their critical principles by Hort himself. They were led by their investigation to distinguish four main types of text:—

(1) A late type, originating in Syria about the year 300, which, issuing from Constantinople, became the prevailing text in later manuscripts, and corresponds essentially with the textus receptus of early printed editions:

(2) A type originating in Alexandria, characterized by linguistic emendations:

(3) A type originating in Syria but reaching the West previous to the year 200, represented essentially by the Old Latin versions on the one hand and by the Syriac on the other, and displaying all sorts of remarkable additions:

(4) The Neutral text, which displays no sort of corruptions.

Westcott and Hort’s work is the latest and most thorough attempt yet made at a complete edition of the New Testament.

LITERATURE.—_The New Testament in the original Greek. The text
revised by Brooke Foss Westcott, D.D., and Fenton John Anthony Hort,
D.D._, Cambridge and London. Vol. i. Text (Fourth Edition, 1898).
Vol. ii., Introduction and Appendix (Third Edition, 1896). A smaller
edition of the text, 1885. Text, from new type, in larger form,
1895. For “Some trifling Corrections to W.-H.’s New Testament,” see
Nestle in the _Expository Times_, viii. 479; ix. 95, 333, 424. See
_Life and Letters of F. J. A. Hort, by his son, A. F. Hort, 2 vols.,
London, 1896; also article on Hort_, by Gregory in the PRE^3, viii.
368. Facsimile of the American Edition with Introduction by Schaff,
in Schaff’s _Companion_.

[Sidenote: Weymouth.]

The “Resultant Greek Testament” of R. F. WEYMOUTH affords a convenient comparison of the text of the most important editions.

LITERATURE.—_The Resultant Greek Testament, exhibiting the text in
which the majority of modern editors are agreed, and containing the
readings of Stephen (1550), Lachmann, Tregelles, Tischendorf,
Lightfoot, Ellicott, Alford, Weiss, the Bâle edition (1880),
Westcott and Hort, and the Revision Committee._ By Richard Francis
Weymouth. With an Introduction by the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop of
Worcester. London, 1886.... Cheap Edition, 1892, pp. xix. 644.
Besides the editions mentioned in the title, the Complutensian,
Elzevir (1633), Scrivener and others are compared in several places.

[Sidenote: Weiss.]

Quite recently, Bernhard WEISS, of Berlin, began a new and independent revision of the text, which has been published in three large volumes with introduction and explanatory notes.

LITERATURE.—_Das Neue Testament. Textkritische Untersuchungen und
Textherstellung von D. Bernhard Weiss. Erster Theil,
Apostelgeschichte: Katholische Briefe: Apocalypse._ Leipzig, 1894.
_Zweiter Theil, Die paulinischen Briefe einschliesslich des
Hebräerbriefs_, 1896. _Dritter Theil, Die vier Evangelien_ 1900.
Vol. i. is compiled from _Texte und Untersuchungen_, ix. 3, 4; viii.
3; vii. 1. The section in vol. ii. entitled _Textkritik der
paulinischen Briefe_, is taken from _TU._ xiv. 3, and the
corresponding section in vol. iii. from _TU._ xix. 2 (New Series,
iv. 2). See “B. Weiss and the New Testament,” by C. R. Gregory in
the _American Journal of Theology_, 1897, i. 16-37.

[Sidenote: Von Gebhardt.]

In Germany, O. von GEBHARDT has done good service by issuing the text of Tischendorf’s last edition, with the necessary corrections, and giving in the margin the readings adopted by Tregelles and Westcott-Hort, when these differ from the text. In the “editio stereotypa minor,” the differences of Westcott-Hort alone are shown. In his Greek-German New Testament, he also exhibits at the foot of Luther’s German text those readings wherein the text of Erasmus’s second edition of 1519, used by Luther, differs from that of the last edition of Tischendorf. In this diglot of v. Gebhardt, therefore, one can see at a glance not only how far the Greek text of the present day differs from that printed at the beginning of the sixteenth century, but also the amount of agreement between present-day editors working on such different principles as Tischendorf and Westcott and Hort. In the Adnotatio Critica found in the Appendix to the larger edition, there is a brief digest of the critical Apparatus, but it extends only to those passages where Tischendorf and Westcott-Hort disagree. The editio minor contains 600 pages. One of these, p. 501, shows not a single disagreement between these great editors, while 18 pages exhibit only one variation each, and these, for the most part, mere grammatical trifles.

LITERATURE.—_Novum Testamentum Graece recensionis Tischendorfianae
ultimae textum cum Tregellesiano et Westcottio-Hortiano contulit et
brevi adnotatione critica additisque locis parallelis illustravit
Oscar de Gebhardt._ Editio stereotypa. Lipsiae (Tauchnitz), 1881.
Seventh edition, 1896.

_N. T. Graece et Germanice._ Leipzig, 1881. Fourth edition, 1896. In
this edition the Greek is that of Tischendorf’s last edition, and
the German is the Revised text of Luther (1870). The various
readings are shown for both texts, and a selection of parallel
passages is also given.

_N. T. Graece ex ultima Tischendorfii recensione edidit Oscar de
Gebhardt._ Editio stereotypa minor. Lipsiae, 16mo., 1887. Fourth
edition, 1898.

[Sidenote: Stuttgart New Testament.]

The text of the Greek and Greek-German New Testaments prepared by me, and issued by the Württemberg Bible Institute, is based on a comparison of the three editions of Tischendorf, Westcott-Hort, and Weymouth. The variations of these editions are shown at the foot of the page, where are given also the readings inserted by Westcott and Hort in their Appendix and omitted by O. v. Gebhardt. From Acts onwards, the readings adopted by Weiss are indicated as well. In a lower margin, a number of important manuscript readings are given. In the Gospels and Acts, these are taken mainly, though not exclusively, from Codex Bezae. In the Greek-German edition, the text (German) is that of the Revised Version of 1892. Below it are given the readings of Luther’s last edition (1546), with several of his marginal glosses and earlier renderings.

LITERATURE.—_Novum Testamentum Graece cum apparatu critico ex
editionibus et libris manu scriptis collecto._ Stuttgart, 1898.
Second corrected edition, 1899. Also issued in two and in ten parts,
and interleaved. Third edition in preparation.

[Sidenote: Schjøtt.]

Fr. SCHJØTT published an edition at Copenhagen in 1897 the text of which was determined by the agreement between the Codex Vaticanus (Claromontanus, from Heb. ix. 14 onwards) and the Sinaiticus. Where they disagreed he called in the next oldest manuscript as umpire. For this purpose he employed for the Gospels the manuscripts A C D E F H I^b K L P Q T U V X Z Γ Δ, for the Acts and Catholic Epistles A C D E H K L P, for the Pauline Epistles A C D E F G H L P, and for the Apocalypse A C P 1, 18, 38, 49, 92, 95. At the foot of the text his edition gives, in two divisions, a comparison with the Elzevir text and with that of Tischendorf-Gebhardt (1894). From what source Schjøtt derived his knowledge of the Vaticanus and the Sinaiticus is not mentioned. The photograph of the former seems not to have been employed.

LITERATURE.—_Novum Testamentum Graece ad fidem testium
vetustissimorum recognovit necnon variantes lectiones ex editionibus
Elzeviriana et Tischendorfiana subjunxit Fr. Schjøtt._ Hauniae,
1897, pp. xi. 562.

[Sidenote: Baljon.]

The edition of J. M. S. BALJON is in the main an abridgment of Tischendorf’s octava maior. He avails himself, however, of later discoveries, such as the Sinai-Syriac Palimpsest for the Gospels, and the Syriac version published by Gwynn for the Apocalypse. In Acts, Blass’s restoration of the so-called Forma Romana is regularly indicated. No other edition, for one thing, shows more conveniently where recent scholars recognise glosses or other interpolations, or propose transpositions or conjectural emendations and such like. So far, therefore, it may be commended to those who do not possess an edition with a more copious critical apparatus. But even Baljon’s New Testament fails to realise the ideal of a practical edition.

LITERATURE.—_Novum Testamentum Graece praesertim in usum studiosorum
recognovit J. M. S. Baljon_, Groningae, 1898, pp. xxiii. 731. The
first 320 pages are also issued separately as Volumen primum
continens Evangelia Matthaei, Marci, Lucae et Ioannis. _Vide_
Bousset in the _Theologische Rundschau_ for July 1898.

[Sidenote: Catholic editions.]

From the Catholic side little has been done in Germany in this department of scholarship for a long time. In 1821 Aloys GRATZ reprinted the Complutensian at Tübingen; while Leander van ESS issued an edition which combined the Complutensian and Erasmus’s fifth edition.[17] This also appeared at Tübingen in 1827. Both of these contained the Vulgate, and showed where recent editions gave a different text.

Reuss mentions two Synopses, one by Joseph GEHRINGER (Tübingen, 1842, 4^o), the other by Fr. X. PATRICIUS (Freiburg, 1853, 4^o), and two small editions, one of which, by A. JAUMANN (Munich, 1832), was the first to be printed in Bavaria. The other is by Fr. X. REITHMAYER (Munich, 1847), and closely follows the text of Lachmann.

There has also appeared recently at Innsbruck a Greek-Latin edition in two volumes by Michael HETZENAUER, a Capuchin. The first volume contains the Evangelium and the second the Apostolicum. But as the strict Catholic is bound by the decision of the Holy Office, Hetzenauer’s edition hardly falls to be considered here. A resolution of the Holy Office of 13th January 1897 pronounced even the Comma Johanneum (1 John v. 7) to be an integral part of the New Testament. This was confirmed by the Pope on the 15th January, and published in the _Monitore Ecclesiastico_ of the 28th February of the same year. An edition in Greek and Latin was issued by BRANDSCHEID at Freiburg in 1893.

It is impossible to enumerate here editions of separate books of the New Testament. Many of these are in the form of Commentaries. In addition to the works of Blass, to which reference will be made later, mention may be made here of a recent and most thorough piece of work—viz., _The Gospel according to St. Mark: The Greek Text, with Introduction and Notes_, by Henry Barclay SWETE, D.D., pp. cx. 412 (London, Macmillan, 1898); also of _The Gospel according to St. Luke after the Westcott-Hort text, edited with parallels, illustrations, various readings, and notes_, by the Rev. Arthur Wright: London, Macmillan, 1900; and of Hilgenfeld’s edition of the Acts in Greek and Latin. Berlin, 1899.

[Sidenote: Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha.]

Nor can we enter particularly the field of early Christian Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Those who cannot obtain Hilgenfeld’s _Novum Testamentum extra Canonem Receptum_, or Resch’s _Agrapha_, or the editions of Tischendorf, Lipsius, and Bonnet, will find a handy and inexpensive selection in my _Supplement_ to Gebhardt’s editions of Tischendorf.

LITERATURE.—_Novi Testamenti Graeci Supplementum editionibus de
Gebhardt-Tischendorfianis adcommodavit Eb. Nestle. Insunt Codicis
Cantabrigiensis Collatio, Evangeliorum deperditorum Fragmenta, Dicta
Salvatoris Agrapha, Alia._ Lipsiae (Tauchnitz), 1896, pp. 96.

There can be no question that in these last mentioned editions which have been brought out at the end of the nineteenth century, we have a text corresponding far more closely to the original than that contained in the first editions of the Greek New Testament issued at the beginning of the sixteenth century, on which are based the translations into modern languages used in the Christian churches of Europe at the present time. It would be a vast mistake, however, to conclude from the textual agreement displayed in these latest editions, that research in this department of New Testament study has reached its goal. Just as explorers, in excavating the ruined temples of Olympia or Delphi, are able from the fragments they discover to reconstruct the temple, to their mind’s eye at least, in its ancient glory—albeit it is actually in ruins—so too, much work remains to be done ere even all the materials are re-collected, and the plan determined which shall permit us to restore the Temple of the New Testament Scriptures to its original form.

Footnote 2:

They were reinserted in the library on the 23rd August.

Footnote 3:

Mary’s Hymn, Luke i. 46-55; and Hymn of Zacharias, Luke i. 68-79.

Footnote 4:

“Nec eis sane quibuslibet, sed vetustissimis simul et emendatissimis.”

Footnote 5:

At the present time this text of Erasmus is still disseminated by tens
and even hundreds of thousands by the British and Foreign Bible
Society of London. To this day the word ἀκαθάρτητος is printed in
their editions at Apoc. xvii. 4, though there is no such word in the
Greek language as ἀκαθάρτης, meaning uncleanness. In the concluding
verses of the New Testament, which were retranslated by Erasmus from
his Latin Bible, there stands the lovely future ἀφαιρήσει for ἀφελεῖ.
We find also constructions like οὐκ ἔστι, καίπερ ἐστίν, in c. xvii. 8,
where, however, the accentuation ἐστίν makes Erasmus responsible for
an additional error he did not commit, seeing that he at least printed
ἔστιν. Every college lad knows that καίπερ is construed with the
participle, though it is not perhaps every one that will see just at
once that καὶ πάρεστι is the correct reading. [_Cf._ Mark xv. 6, where
the MSS. fluctuate in like manner between ὃν παρῃτοῦντο and ὅνπερ
ᾒτοῦντο (ΟΝΠΑΡΗΤΟΥΝΤΟ.)] Other instances where the Textus Receptus has
adopted the reading of Erasmus in spite of the fact that it is
unsupported by any known MS. are to be found, _e.g._ in 1 Pet. ii. 6
(καὶ περιέχει) and in 2 Cor. i. 6. Luther, who used Erasmus’s second
edition of 1519, followed him in saying of the Beast, “that is not
although it is.” This, however, is not so remarkable as that in the
year 1883 such things were still allowed to stand in the first
impression of the Revised Version of Luther’s Bible issued by the
Conference of German Evangelical Churches, and only removed in their
last Revision of 1892. The error in Apoc. xvii. 8 was copied into the
English Authorised Version of 1611 (“is not and yet is”) but was
corrected by the Revisers of 1884 (“is not and shall come”).

Footnote 6:

Facsimile in Schaff’s _Companion_.

Footnote 7:

Facsimile in Schaff’s _Companion_.

Footnote 8:

Facsimiles of Folio 1598 and Octavo 1604 in Schaff’s _Companion_.

Footnote 9:

Copies of the Parisian Polyglot now cost about £6.

Footnote 10:

Facsimile in Schaffs’s _Companion_.

Footnote 11:

Facsimile in Schaff’s _Companion_.

Footnote 12:

Facsimile in Schaff’s _Companion_.

Footnote 13:

Facsimile of the second edition, Halle and London, 1796, in Schaff’s
_Companion_.

Footnote 14:

Facsimile in Schaff’s _Companion_.

Footnote 15:

Facsimiles of the edition of 1841, and the octava maior 1872, in
Schaff’s _Companion_.

Footnote 16:

Facsimile in Schaff’s _Companion_.

Footnote 17:

Van Ess’s edition was issued with two different title-pages. One of
these gives the names of the Protestant editors, Matthaei and
Griesbach. But the other omits the names together with the Notanda on
the back of the title-page, so that the reader is left in the dark as
to the meaning of the symbols Gb, M, etc., in the margin. Most copies
omit the Introduction, which contains the Pope’s sanction of the
editions of Erasmus and Ximenes.